Hard Sell
by Zelda Ophelia
Summary: AU: Genderbender. Pre-series. Dawn Flack, not a junior, is finally getting her first solo case. But when one death becomes three with little evidence, she's needs all the help Mac and Stella can give her to find this guy. Story complete!
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. Thanks to Elenna for betaing.  
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_He yawned, smiling, as he walked down the stairs, feeling better - satiated - for the first time in _months_. He'd actually managed to forget, even if just for a little while, how bad things had gotten with work._

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It was easy to find the kitchen again; old houses like this were all built the same way. He was impressed with what she had done with the place--she'd been very proud of her accomplishments in refurbishing her home when she'd given him a tour. The kitchen was her pride and joy: top-of-the-line appliances, brand new cabinets, and a granite counter. The bottle of wine they'd opened earlier was still there. It was nearly empty, but had just enough left for one more glass. He was thirsty, satiated in other ways, but very thirsty after their activities.

Finishing the wine, he stretched and yawned as he took the wine glasses to the sink and washed them, pushing a couple of knives to the side as he set them in the dish drainer. He then dragged the boxers he wore back on up over his hips. He'd lost weight over the past few weeks unintentionally, but he didn't mind, considering the appreciative looks he'd gotten at the bar. Or the appreciative looks she'd given him when the clothes started coming off. Perhaps the stress at work had been worth it, to an extent, since the pudge around his waist had disappeared. Maybe his abs weren't washboard, but he looked a lot more fit than he had before this started.

_Work. He groaned as he wiped his hand down his face. That was the last thing he'd wanted to be reminded of. He didn't even want to consider the number of emails he'd have from _her_ when he got in tomorrow morning. Later this morning. Whenever it was. Why did she have to be like that? Why couldn't she just leave well enough alone and let him do his job? If she actually did, most of the things she requested or asked about would be taken care of without her even needing to notice them._

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Hands clenched into fists as he thought, replaying their last conversation - over the phone thankfully; he wasn't ready to face her in person yet - over and over again. The screeching tone of her voice as she complained again that things weren't going to be set up properly and didn't they know how important this was, she'd talk to his boss if he didn't get it right. He'd said all the right things, plied her with platitudes, and yet she still continued on and on and on. Nothing was ever good enough.

When he closed his eyes, he could see her piercing blue gaze staring back at him. Opening them, for a second he thought he saw her long hair swishing past the corner of his eye. Up the stairs.

_No. Not here. _She_ couldn't be here. He wouldn't allow it._

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Without even thinking, he grabbed the knives from the drainer, holding one in each hand as he followed her up the staircase. The bedroom door was still open, and he could see her stretched out across the bed. Unconsciously, he placed one of the knives on the bureau, holding the other aloft as he approached her. Just as she opened those brilliant blue eyes, he struck, thrusting the knife into her chest again and again and again, until those eyes were no longer brilliant but unseeing.

_Panting, he looked at the bed and around the room. It was covered in blood. _He_ was covered in blood. Using a hand towel from the en suite bathroom, he wiped down the handle of the knife, dropping it on the bed next to her. The towel dropped into the bathroom trashcan, followed by the boxers he wore that were covered in her blood. His reflection gazed back at him from the mirror over the sink, looking far calmer than it had any right to be. He _felt_ far calmer than he had any right to be._

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Pausing, he attempted to define just how it was that he did feel. He felt... good. He felt pleased. He felt vindicated. He... he had enjoyed that. He gave his reflection a quick grin, pleased by the look he received in return. The shower heated up quickly, and he carefully washed himself down. He didn't think she'd mind him using her shampoo or soap. Or her towel to dry off. That went into the trash as well.

Looking under her sink, he found a bottle of bleach and some bathroom cleaner. He cleaned out the tub and wiped down every surface he thought he'd touched. Back in the bedroom, he quickly dressed, deciding the ferocity with which they'd undressed each other earlier had been to his luck. His clothes had been thrown far enough from the bed that they'd escaped relatively unscathed. There was a bit of blood on the shirt, but his suit jacket would cover it, and he didn't expect to encounter anyone else who might even notice. It was odd pulling on his trousers without wearing anything underneath, but it wasn't unpleasant, either. The tie went into his briefcase, followed by a few other things from the bureau.

_Trophies. It was strange to think of a word he'd heard on episodes of _Cold Case Files_ applying to him. But he pushed that thought from his mind, returning to the bathroom cabinet for a soft cloth that he quickly used to wipe down everything he'd touched in the bedroom. Bed, bureau, nightstand, door; if it was even possible that he'd touched it, he wiped it down. He'd watched enough crime shows to know how important this was. Returning to the bathroom one last time, he grabbed the trashcan liner after tossing the cloth inside, pulling it from the can and expertly tying it closed. Then he left, automatically double-checking that the front door was locked and dead-bolted before walking through the kitchen to the back door. Unlike the front door, there was no deadbolt; it locked at the knob. Flipping it locked, he pulled the door firmly shut behind him._

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Once outside, he looked around the street. There were no lights on in any of the houses, and the curb was lined with trashcans. Tomorrow was trash day--even better. Crossing the street, he dropped the bag of trash he'd brought with him into a neighbor's trashcan and then turned to leave.

_He was whistling by the time he reached his car._

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_Mrs. MacKenzie glanced down the street as she carried her bundled garbage to the can out at the curb. Trash pick-up was later this morning, later being subjective as it was just after 4:00 AM now. But the truck came through at 6:30, and of course she'd remembered that she'd forgotten the bag from the study last night._

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Yawning, she lifted the lid of the trashcan, watching the house across the street. She'd heard car engines on the road during the night, late at night. It could only be that teacher across the road. She was young and unmarried, and everyone knew about how she'd had that man living with her last month.

_She dropped her bag in, not bothering to look to see what she was doing, and yawned once more before returning to the house. It had been a while since she'd made a coffee cake. That would be nice for breakfast. And she could start on a roast for lunch as soon as the cake was finished. The Masterson's down the street would surely appreciate the extras of both; Sarah Masterson didn't have nearly enough time to cook, what with the new baby and all._

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She could hear the phone ringing inside. Ashley Strube glanced back down at her cell phone, clicking disconnect before she turned back to the front door. There was a window near the top, one that Marcie wouldn't have had any problem seeing through, since she was a stunning 5'10". Ashley, on the other hand, was a stunted 5'1" - just the right height to be an armrest, Marcie sometimes teased her - and even on her tippy-toes all she could see was the ceiling.

The ringing inside had stopped when she'd hung up, and now all she could hear was silence, not even an alarm clock. She glanced back at her phone to check the time; she only had about ten more minutes before she needed to head back to work. She had volunteered to come and see why Marcie hadn't made it to school that morning, since they both had first period free - that's how they'd become such good friends, hanging out together in the morning trying to get ready for their classes. Usually if Marcie wasn't planning to come in until second period, she called ahead to let someone in the office know. That she hadn't called ahead and hadn't arranged for a substitute had everyone just a little bit worried. While Ashley didn't blame her for wanting to skiv off on a Friday morning, it had been a rough week, Marcie wasn't the type to be this irresponsible.

With a sigh, Ashley sat on the bench by the door and took off her shoes. There was no way her brand new suede Mary Janes were going to survive the amount of dew on the ground. Not that her hose would, either, but she kept a spare in her desk for a reason. Tentatively stepping into the grass, she wrinkled her nose as her pantyhose soaked through.

"Marce, you so owe me for this," Ashley muttered under her breath as she tiptoed through the wet grass to the nearest window. She was fairly certain that last night had been "date night" - the one Thursday a month Marcie and some of her old college friends met for a night out in the city. While Marcie hadn't ever skipped work the day after "date night", she had come in looking a little worse for wear on a couple of occasions. She'd probably had too much to drink and forgotten to set her alarm.

Peering into the window, all Ashley could see was Marcie's empty dining room and kitchen. There were dishes in the drainer and a bottle of wine on the counter of the otherwise spotless kitchen, but no sign of Marcie. Pulling out her cell phone, she was about to try again when a distinctive blue and white car pulled up to the front of the house.

"Ma'am?" a uniformed police officer said as he stepped out of the passenger side. "We had a report of a possible prowler. I'm going to need to see your identification."

"Prowler? Me?" Ashley's jaw dropped in astonishment, but she turned and glared at the house directly across from Marcie's, where the front window curtain quickly moved back into place. Her friend had mentioned more than once how that particular neighbor was the biggest busybody in the neighborhood, but to call the cops on her? That woman had some nerve! "My ID is in my bag, on the porch."

She carefully walked through the dewy grass back to the porch, meeting the officer there. Her purse - the find of the century at seventy-five percent off during a shopping trip with Marcie and Lori, the art teacher - was on the bench where she'd taken off her shoes. Pulling out her wallet, she offered her driver's license to the officer as his partner joined them on the porch.

"What are you doing here?"

"My friend, Marcie, lives here, and she didn't come to work this morning, and she didn't answer her phone. Since I don't have class until-" She glanced at her cell phone, groaning when she saw the time; now she was going to be late. "-second period, I offered to come and check on her."

"And you were looking in the window because?"

"I like running around in wet grass in my stocking feet?" she suggested sarcastically. "Look, I've worked with Marcie for three years now. Just because she doesn't teach first period doesn't mean she doesn't show up until second. She's always there on time, or she calls ahead. She didn't today. That's not like her, and everyone was getting worried when she didn't show and didn't call, so I came out. I was looking in her window because I was trying to see if I could see her. I was going to go around and try the back door next. And then, you know, call you guys."

"Call it in, Allan," the officer who'd been driving said to the younger man. "Wellness check at this address."

"Wellness check?" Ashley asked. "What's that mean?"

"That your friend has been noticed to be missing and as a result, we're going to try to determine if she is okay."

"She's probably sleeping off a few too many glasses of wine," Ashley said, just barely stopping herself from rolling her eyes. There was no way she'd take that kind of attitude from one of her students, and she had a feeling the officers wouldn't appreciate it, either.

"Hopefully that's the case, Ms. Strube," Officer Allan said. He'd returned from the patrol car while they were talking. After his partner's nod, he stepped over to the door and knocked loudly.

Once again, there was no answer. He glanced back at the older officer before knocking again. As he did so, his partner turned to Ashley.

"You said there was a back door?"

She nodded, then showed him around to the back. Officer Allan followed behind them, peering into the windows like she had been. When they arrived in tiny backyard, she pointed out the door at the back of the house that led into Marcie's kitchen.

"She keeps a spare key in a fake rock back here somewhere." She gestured at the shrubs by the door. "I think she once said that it was next to a gnome?"

"I've got a garden gnome over here, Lon," Officer Allan said, bending down to dig through the bushes. "There's a large rock next to it. Yeah, it's a fake."

The older officer, Lon, shook his head. "Keeping a spare key outside like this is never a good idea, even if it is to our advantage today."

Once the door was open, Ashley breezed past them and through the kitchen, calling out Marcie's name.

"Ma'am!" Officer Lon called after her, but she ignored him as she headed to the stairs.

"Marcie's room is up here," she said to them as they followed her through the house.

Officer Allan followed her closely. "Ma'am, we need to ask that you stay behind us."

"Oh please." She turned and frowned at him. "I've seen those cop shows on TV. You think that something's happened to her. Trust me, she's probably fine. She went out with friends last night and is probably just sleeping it off."

She turned and continued up the stairs, aiming for Marcie's room. She definitely owed her now, even if Officer Allan was kinda cute. She'd nearly been arrested just because Marcie decided to sleep in. The door to Marcie's room wasn't fully shut, and she pushed it open as she entered, pausing when she saw the room.

"Oh my god," Ashley said, feeling her knees go week as she started taking deep gasping breaths. There was blood everywhere.

"Ma'am? Ma'am you need to-" Officer Allan was in front of her, trying to guide her out of the room, saying something, but she couldn't tell what it was, couldn't hear what it was.

All she could hear were screams. And she had a feeling they belonged to her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing.  
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Dawn Flack looked in the mirror again, tipping her head to the side and scrunching up her nose as her blue eyes studied the image before her. Tugging her pants down a smidge - it was hell trying to find pants long enough for her six-foot frame, even without wearing heels, and don't get her started on trying to find nice flats that didn't look like something her grandma wore - she decided that she passed muster: professional without looking stuffy, cute without looking cutesy. One of these days, she was going to be able to get the right look on the first try; until then she was just going to be getting up with an extra fifteen minutes to go through her closet. New division, new people to hit just the right tone with; some things about life had been easier when she was in uniform. For one thing, she had always known what to wear.

Clipping her sidearm and shield to her belt, she slipped her wallet into her jacket pocket and grabbed her keys. She still had just enough time to grab a mocha latte at the cafe on the corner and make it to the precinct on time. With plenty of time. She tried to get there with a good ten minutes to spare. As someone who wasn't a morning person, it helped to get to work early and give the caffeine time to soak in so she was feeling more like herself and ready to go when it was time to go on the clock.

Her cell phone rang as she was locking the door to her small apartment behind her. A quick check of the caller ID showed that it was dispatch. She answered as she took the stairs down - avoiding the elevator since it always took forever and had a history of breaking down - and her morning plans were completely changed by the time she reached her building's entrance.

While her neighborhood cafe had better coffee, she could hit the Starbucks drive-through on her way to the scene. Her crime scene. Her first solo crime scene. Without Brustin.

Taking a deep breath, she firmly quashed the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She needed to get to her car, get her coffee, and get to the scene. It wasn't too far from here, hence the call before she was on: it didn't make sense for her to drive to the precinct only to turn around and head back this direction.

Less than twenty minutes later ,she arrived there, coffee in hand, to find two officers speaking with a distraught looking young woman.

"Lon," she said to the portly officer who walked out to the street to meet her.

"Detective Flack," he said with a wide grin, making a show of checking her car for a partner. "No more training wheels?"

"Cute," she deadpanned back at him, rolling her eyes. "What have we got?"

He shook his head, his graying comb-over flapping with the movement. "It's a bad one, Flack." He jerked his head back at the younger officer with him, who had a familiar, albeit slightly green, face that she couldn't quite place a name to, before he continued. "Thought the kid was going to lose it, but he pulled through like a trooper. I put him in charge of the girl; giving them something to do helps."

"Who's she?" Dawn asked as she took a long drink of her coffee, studying the woman on the porch.

"Co-worker, came over to check on the vic when she didn't make it to work this morning." Lon gave Dawn a grim smile. "Neighbor saw her poking around the front of the house and called it in as a prowler. We went ahead and did a wellness check. She knew of a key in the back, so we went in that way."

"And," Dawn prompted, troubled by the way he shifted his weight before he continued.

"She got in there ahead of us, certain her friend was just sleeping one off."

"She saw the body?"

"Yeah."

"She didn't touch anything, did she?" Dawn asked, suppressing a groan. The CSIs weren't going to like this at all. Even if she hadn't touched anything, they were going to need to get elimination samples from her.

"Just the upstairs bedroom door. She sorta shut down after that. I don't blame her. If that had been my friend-" He didn't finish, shaking his head again. "There was a lot of blood."

"Okay." She squared her shoulders, preparing herself for the worst. It had been a long time since she'd thrown up at a scene - the only time she'd thrown up at a scene had been her first floater back in her first year on patrol with Moran. That didn't mean there hadn't been times since when her stomach had tried to rebel while on the job, but today wasn't going to be the day that happened. It was probably good she hadn't raided the small food stash she kept in the glove compartment for some breakfast to go with her coffee. "I'm going to go inside. Keep her around; I'll talk to her after I look at the bedroom. When the CSIs get here, send them on up. I'll fill them in."

She used the back door to get in, minimizing the potential disruption of the scene by entering and exiting the same way as the first responders. Dawn made several careful notations in her notebook as she walked through the kitchen. There were dishes in the drainer that had likely been left to dry the night before. There was an empty bottle of wine on the counter next to it, and, glancing back at the drainer, she noticed there were not one but two wineglasses drying in it.

Their vic had possibly had company.

She made a mental note to point it out to the CSIs when they arrived. Not that she thought she'd need to--they'd likely catch it on their own--but she wasn't about to start assuming anything. That was one thing Brustin had pounded into her: never assume anything.

Past the kitchen was the dining room, split from the living room by the entryway and staircase. She was willing to bet that the living room connected to a bathroom, which connected to the kitchen to form a circle of traffic. A lot of old houses like this were built that way.

Dawn didn't go to check, though, instead taking the stairs to the crime scene. There was a short hallway at the top with three doors--two bedrooms and a bathroom, she guessed. One of the doors was open, and from where she stood she could already see the massive amounts of blood Lon had alluded to. She paused at the top of the steps, setting her coffee cup on the wide banister while she pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Grabbing her cup, she pushed the bedroom door open further and stepped inside.

In the center of the bedroom stood a large bed - probably at least a queen, she mused to herself, trying to keep an analytical eye on the scene - covered with what were once light blue sheets and matching bedding. The nude body of a young woman lay across the covers, unseeing blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. From where she stood in the doorway, Dawn could see the knife on the bed beside her and the large number of stab wounds to her chest. Her dark brown hair, matted with blood, spread across a blood-soaked pillow. The entire bed was covered with blood, as were the walls and ceiling in places.

The smell of blood permeated the room, and she lifted her coffee up to her face, holding it in front of her mouth and nose. The "breathe through your mouth" trick had never really worked for her: she had always been able to taste the copper in the air, which was almost worse in her opinion. The smell of her strong coffee mostly overpowered the blood, helping her concentrate more closely on the task at hand. Dawn held her notebook with her other hand, glancing down at her notes as she examined the room.

"Detective Flack," came a voice from behind her.

Dawn turned to see Detectives Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera, both from the crime lab, in the bedroom doorway.

"Welcome to the show," she said, nodding at the body before glancing back down at the notes Lon had given her. "Meet Marcie Erikson: high school biology teacher who lives alone, according to her friend downstairs. Though if you passed through the kitchen-"

"There were two wineglasses and an empty bottle out," Mac finished for her.

"Figured you'd catch that," she said with a grin. "The friend also said that Erikson went out last night for a regular night on the town with friends."

"So it's possible she brought someone home with her," Stella said as she approached the bed. Dawn watched as she carefully took pictures while Mac gloved up. When she was finished with the bed, the other CSI started processing it as she move on to the rest of the room.

"Kitchen knife," Mac said, holding it up for them to see before he bagged it.

"There were dishes in the drainer downstairs," Stella said. "There may have been knives, as well."

"So our guy grabbed it from downstairs while they were getting to know each other over a bottle of wine?" Dawn asked, frowning.

"Possibly," Mac said, "though I think they already knew each other."

"Why do you say that?" she asked as she walked over to the bed.

"Knife-related deaths, especially in a situations like these, are more common between people who know one another. It requires close range--closer than you'd normally let a stranger get to you. And with the number of stab wounds," he added, motioning to the vic's chest, "that suggests this was a crime of passion."

"I'll ask the friend if she was seeing anyone," Dawn said, making a mental note of it. "And who the friends she went out last night with were."

"Mac," Stella called out, "I've got what looks like arterial spray all the way over here."

"It looks like one of the stab wounds punctured an artery," Mac said from where he was looking over the body. "We'll have to have Hawkes confirm it."

"I'll keep that in mind," the ME in question said from the doorway.

"Doctor Hawkes," Mac said in greeting. "We get you today?"

"Yes, you do, though it looks like someone else is missing," Hawkes said, giving Dawn a teasing grin.

"Yeah, I noticed that, too," Stella replied, glancing over her shoulder at Dawn with a smirk.

"Okay, okay." Dawn raised her hands in surrender, pulling a face at them as she flicked her dark hair out of her face. "I get it, Brustin isn't here. But the next person to make a 'training wheels' joke is buying me dinner."

"How about we save it for after you close the case?" Stella said. "Then we can take you out for a nice celebration."

"You're on," Dawn said, sipping her coffee. "I'm going to go down to talk to the friend. I'll let you know what she says."

Mac waved her away as Hawkes began to examine the body. "We'll keep you posted on what we find up here."

Ashley Strube was still sitting on the front porch bench when Dawn returned to the front of the house. She held a mug of steaming coffee now, and for a moment Dawn wondered where it had come from, until she saw a middle-aged woman with a coffee pot approach Strube with a refill.

"Neighbor," Lon said, walking over and holding a mug of his own. "That would be the one who called in the prowler."

"In other words, she's here to find out what happened under the guise of being a good neighbor."

"Something like that." He shrugged before he continued, "At least the coffee's good."

Dawn rolled her eyes before she nodded at Strube. "How's she doing?"

"Still a little shell-shocked, but she's hanging in there."

"Think she's up for talking?"

He looked thoughtful before replying, "Give it a try. She's doing better than she was earlier."

Dawn nodded, thanking him. Strube looked up as she approached, hugging her mug tightly with her hands.

"Miss Strube?" Dawn asked, crouching down in front of where the tiny woman sat, yet still managing to tower over her. "I'm Detective Dawn Flack. I'd like to ask you a few questions about Miss Erikson."

Ashley nodded, taking a sip of her coffee before asking, "What do you need to know?"

"You told the officers that Miss Erikson went out last night?"

"It was 'Date Night'. But it wasn't actually a date." Ashley took a long, shaky breath before she continued. "It was something they started doing in college. Marcie and her friends, they always made plans to have one evening when they did stuff together, so they'd always have one fun night to look forward to when classes started getting rough."

"Do you know where they went?"

"Some restaurant in Manhattan; it was supposed to be a nice one. They backed it off from once a week to once a month when they all graduated - Marcie said it was because they were all further apart. I think one of them is in Jersey City now?" Her voice liltedas she spoke, posing the comment more as a question than a statement of fact. "And so they could go to nicer places than they did as students."

"How about the people she went with?"

"I never met any of them." Ashley shook her head, and then said, "But I know that maybe Lori has. I think."

"And Lori is?"

"She's the art teacher at the school where we teach. Lori started the same year as Marcie, a year before me. They're close; Marcie sort of brought me into the fold when I started. We both have our planning period during first period, so we'd always end up in the office at the same time making copies."

"Does this Lori have a last name?"

"Brennivin." Ashley looked down at the mug in her hands, absently tracing random patterns on the sides with her fingers. "Marcie invited us out to a dinner with one of her date night friends about a month or two ago. I already had plans, so I didn't go, but I think that Lori did."

Dawn nodded, making a note of it before changing tactics. "Do you know if Miss Erikson was seeing anyone?"

"No, she wasn't." Ashley glanced up at her. "She had been, but they broke up several months ago because he was moving to Atlanta. It was all very amicable--they're still good friends. I know he stayed with her last month when he was back in the city for some meetings."

"What is his name?"

"Cory Beasley. You don't think he had anything to do with this, do you?"

"I just need to cover all the bases, Miss Strube."

"Oh." she seemed to shrink in on herself. "Does that mean I'm a suspect, too?"

"Do you think you need to be a suspect?"

"I watch those cop shows on TV. I know how it works."

"All it meant is that I need to follow up on everything, Miss Strube." Dawn kept her tone even as she replied, avoiding the temptation to roll her eyes. Everyone thought they knew police procedure these days thanks to those "cop shows", and it had caused her more than one headache on past cases.

Ashley nodded. "It's just all so surreal, you know? I just figured that Marcie had forgotten her alarm. I was so _annoyed_ with her for making me drive out here and ruining my hose and then getting the cops called on me for trying to check on her. I never actually once thought that maybe she wasn't-" She closed her eyes, pursing her lips tightly together as she tried to regain her composure. "I'm sorry. It's just, this isn't at all what I expected my day to be like."

"I understand," Dawn said, reaching out and patting her arm awkwardly. She still wasn't very good at the "comforting the family" portion of her job. Unfortunately, Brustin said that it never really got any easier. "You said that her break-up with Cory was amicable, but do you know if she had any other enemies?"

"Oh, no. Everyone loved her," Ashley said in astonishment. "Even her students, which is saying a lot considering that she's a biology teacher - that's one of the least liked subjects in most schools."

Dawn nodded in full agreement; she'd hated her high school science classes. "And she got along with all of her colleague?"

"Of course." Ashley leaned in and continued conspiratorially, "She was named Teacher of the Year last year. It was her third year teaching there. It's practically unheard of for someone that new to win the award."

"Did she ever say anything about her neighbors?"

"Just the house across the street," she said with a glance at the neighbor talking with Allan and Lon. "The woman living there is the neighborhood gossip. She keeps tabs on everything everyone is doing. Apparently she gave Marcie a hard time last month when Cory was staying with her, going on about living in sin and such."

The front door opened behind her. She automatically moved out of the way as Hawkes and his assistant rolled a gurney and body bag out the door.

"Marce-" Ashley said with a gasp, standing and trying to reach for the gurney.

Dawn held her back, shooting a glare at Hawkes for not giving her enough of a heads to get the friend back away from the door. He gave her an apologetic look, mouthing, "Sorry" as they pushed past, taking the body to the coroner's van. Stella and Mac weren't far behind him, both looking rather frustrated. She nodded when Mac tipped his head to the crime lab's SUV. It seemed they needed to talk.

Giving Miss Strube one of her cards, she thanked her for her help and made arrangements for Lon and his partner to take her home. As they helped her into the patrol car, she joined the CSIs by their vehicle.

"If you two looked any happier, I might expect you to burst into song," she joked. Stella almost cracked a smile, though Mac shook his head. "That good, huh?"

"He's good," Stella said. "We even fumed the body--no prints on her. None anywhere in the bedroom. No hair, no fibers, nothing."

"We believe he cleaned up after himself," Mac added. "And it's a possibility that he cleaned off, as well--the bathtub had been recently bleached."

"So he took a shower? After killing her?"

"Possibly."

"What about the sheets?" Dawn asked. Considering the state of the body and apparent sexual nature of the crime, it seemed likely that there should be some DNA evidence there. "Can you get anything from them?"

"We've bagged them to take with us and test. However, with the amount of blood there was, any seminal fluid could have been compromised by the presence of her DNA."

"Huh?" Dawn scrunched her face in confusion. There was a reason she left the science stuff to the CSIs; it had never been a favorite subject of hers.

"Her blood will have soaked into those areas," Stella explained. "Given the amount of her blood there was, it's likely that her DNA would present in concentrations too high for us to be able to isolate her attacker's DNA."

"It diluted it," Dawn said, nodding in understanding.

"Still, Hawkes will be able to tell us if she had sex with her attacker," Mac added.

"But," Dawn said with a sigh, rubbing the back of her neck, "if he's careful enough to shower, clean up, and not leave any prints on her body, he was probably careful while having sex with her. Great." she pushed her hair back from her face as she changed the subject. "I may have a lead on who she went out with last night. I'll start there and see if they know anything."

"And we have the wine glasses and bottle bagged, as well as some other things from the kitchen," Stella offered. "Who knows--we might find something on one of them that's usable. He may not have been careful enough."


	3. Chapter 3

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing.  
**  
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::

Fillmore High School looked like just about every public high school in the city, including Dawn's alma mater. Pulling the door open and going inside, she easily followed the signs to the office.

The secretaries inside, several of whom had obviously been crying, watched her warily when she entered, seeming to size her up to determine who she was and what she wanted, before one stepped up to the counter. "May I help you?"

"I'm Detective Dawn Flack," she said as she held up her shield.

"You're here about Marcie, Miss Erikson," the secretary said quietly, biting her lip as her eyes began to mist over.

"Yes," Dawn said solemnly, "I am. I need to speak with the school's principal and a Ms. Lori Brennivin for now. I'll need to speak with other members of the staff later, too."

"Dr. Melton is in a meeting right now with the Superintendent and some members of the school board, but Lori should be in her classroom. I'll show you down there."

Nodding slightly, Dawn followed her. She was unsurprised to hear the principal was "in a meeting", probably trying to decide what spin to put on the situation. She was a little surprised that Lori Brennivin was still there. Considering that news of Miss Erikson's death had already made it to the school, she almost expected to hear that her close friends had taken bereavement days.

They stopped outside a doorway that had been painted and decorated to look like, in Dawn's opinion, a gateway to another world. Pretty appropriate, she thought, for an art teacher's classroom. There was a window that hadn't been painted over, through which she could see a woman in her late twenties sitting at her desk and students sitting at tables working on what looked like homework.

"Miss Brennivin is giving her students study hall today," the secretary who had accompanied her explained. "She said she wasn't up for teaching. Miss Strube didn't even come back in; she called Dr. Melton to ask for a substitute for the rest of the day." She paused, looking around them before leaning in towards Dawn and whispering, "Is it true?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is it true that Miss Erikson was found _naked_?"

Dawn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Ma'am, I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation."

"Oh." She gave Dawn a knowing smile before opening the door. "Miss Brennivin?"

The woman at the desk looked up at them, rising and walking to the door. "Miss Jones." She glanced at Dawn quickly, then back at the secretary. "Is this-"

"Miss Jones," Dawn interrupted quickly, trying to give the nosy secretary a pleasant smile, "I'm sure that Miss Brennivin doesn't wish to leave her class unsupervised, and this isn't a conversation the students need to observe. Could you possibly stay with them?"

"Of course," she answered, looking a bit disappointed but entering the classroom.

Dawn pushed the door shut behind her before turning back to the art teacher. "I'm Detective Dawn Flack. Is there somewhere we can talk that isn't in the middle of the hall? I didn't think you needed to do this in front of your students."

"I thought so--well that you'd be here about Marcie. Um, well, the closest place would be down here. It isn't really private, but it's out of the way." She showed Dawn to a small, windowed alcove with a built-in bench. "The administration tends to frown on having totally private areas around the school that students could misuse. Especially after Marcie and I found a pair-" She stopped, taking a deep breath as she tried to rein in her emotions.

Dawn reached out and clasped her hand in her own. "I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Brennivin-"

"Lori, please." she took a deep breath, pressing her other hand to her mouth as it became obvious that she was only holding it together for show. "I, um, I'll be happy to help in any way possible, but I'm not certain how..."

"How well did you know Miss Erikson?"

"Pretty well. We started working here at the same time, so it was a case of the two new people banding together for support." She took a deep breath and tucked her blond hair behind her ears, seeming to center herself as she spoke. "We started going to dinner together after work just to have someone to chat with, and it kinda grew from there."

"How well does she get on with her students?"

"Very well," Lori said with a sad smile. "Hers is - was one of the most popular science classes offered here. We have four other science teachers, and two of them also teach biology classes, but everyone wanted to take hers. Last year there was actually a petition from some students for her to teach an overload and have a planning period, so she could offer one more section of her class. It didn't work, but they tried."

"How about co-workers? Did she have any difficulties with any of your colleagues?"

"Not really. Well, Mr. Livingston - he's one of the other biology teachers - wasn't too happy about the petition, but they seemed to have talked things out. Marcie-" She sighed, looking out the window into an empty courtyard, before turning back to Dawn. "-Marcie is one of those teachers that you wish you could be and that every student could have. She'd have students who hated science loving it by the end of the year, planning to take Advanced Biology the next year. You wouldn't believe the number of graduates coming back and saying they're majoring in science in college because of her. That's one of the things she was most proud of, the number of young women now studying science because they took her class. It used to be that so many young women would be told they weren't supposed to like science because they were girls." Lori looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together as she took a deep breath. "And, yeah, it was easy to be jealous of her and how well liked she was, but it was hard to make it last for long. Marcie's just too much of a sweetheart."

"She got along with everyone?" Dawn couldn't help the tinge of disbelief to her voice. It was hard to see the victim whose badly battered body she'd seen that morning as someone who was loved by everyone. There was someone out there who hated her. Passionately.

Lori shrugged. "That's Marcie for you. She wasn't perfect, not by a long shot - she could be horribly snarky. But she was funny and nice and just, oh, I don't know how to explain it. She was like-"

"One of the cool kids?" Dawn offered.

Lori gave her a slight grin at the reference, "Yeah, like that. But you know how each group of 'cool kids' has that one that isn't hated behind their backs, that everyone universally loves and wants to be? That was Marcie."

Dawn nodded, adding the information to her notebook. "Miss Strube mentioned that Miss Erikson regularly met with, and was likely with last night, some friends from school, but that she hadn't met any of them. Do you have any of their names?"

"Um, yes. Sort of. I've only met one of them, Tanisha Hewitt. She teaches at Harding Prep. I don't know that much more about her, I only met her the once when we had dinner with her." Lori shook her head. "They usually meet with two other friends: Micah and Rhonda. I don't know their last names--well I'm sure Marcie probably told me but I can't think of them right now."

"I understand that Miss Erikson recently broke up with her boyfriend," Dawn said, watching Lori to gauge her reaction. Miss Strube had seemed fairly adamant that it couldn't have been him earlier that morning, but she wanted more impressions as to his character - and to know exactly where he'd been the night before - before she completely wrote him off.

"Cory? You don't actually think he-?" She almost looked like she was about to start to laugh, shaking her head and actually smiling at the thought. "No, he wouldn't have had anything to do with this. He and Marcie are still good friends."

"But they broke up?"

"Because he was moving. Actually, she knew about his move going into the relationship; he was just working at his company's corporate office in the city for a year, then returning to Atlanta. I don't think either of them had any illusions that it was going to be an epic romance or anything like that. They just wanted to have some fun."

Dawn nodded her head in understanding, having been in similar relationships herself. "But he did come to visit recently, didn't he?"

"Meetings at corporate. He could have stayed closer and on their dime, but she offered, so he decided to stay with her." Lori bit back a grin. "Considering how little we saw of her those two weeks, I think they probably had a good time reconnecting."

"Has he been in the city since then?"

"Oh, no, not that I know of. And I'm sure she would have mentioned it--we try to meet up fairly regularly outside of work. It would have come up, if only to explain her not joining us."

"Thank you." Dawn rose from her seat, extending her card to Lori, who looked over it carefully before slipping it into a pocket. "If you can think of anything else, please let me know."

"I will." Lori pressed her lips together tightly, wrapping her arms around herself as they returned to her classroom. "How-" She paused, blinking slowly before she continued. "-How does something like this happen? To someone like her?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out." Dawn nodded to the decorations when they stopped outside Lori's room. "Nice door."

"Thanks." Lori smiled what was probably her first real smile since the interview had started, no longer looking distraught if just for a few seconds. "Last year's senior class did that. It's something I have my seniors do every year, at the end of the year. Instead of a final project, they work together to design and produce a new look for the classroom door. We've had everything from a hobbit burrow to the wardrobe from the Narnia books. This year's class is talking about painting a Stargate, from that TV show on Showtime."

"Based on the movie with James Spader?" Dawn nodded, remembering it. "That's the show with the MacGyver guy, right?"

"Yeah, he's one of the leads," Lori said.

"It would go with the theme you have going on here," Dawn said, gesturing to the decorated door. "Doorways to other worlds and the like."

"I told them they could do it, but they had to paint its surroundings as if it was on another planet - not in some stuffy military bunker. It gives them the chance to be more creative." Lori grinned and shook her head. "I think they're bucking to try to get to watch some episodes in class. For research purposes." Still smiling softly, she sighed and looked back at Dawn. "Thank you. For distracting me for a bit. Does--does it ever stop hurting?"

Swallowing, Dawn looked away, memories of a car accident from her childhood surfacing unwelcome from where they'd been long buried. "It gets easier," she said when she looked back. "It still hurts, but it's not unbearable anymore."

Giving her a long look, Lori nodded and opened her door to return to her class.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for your great reviews.  
**  
**

::

Pushing the bed sheets they had collected at the crime scene aside, Stella sighed in frustration and ran her hands through her curly hair. This wasn't working. Aside from the large amounts of blood - most likely belonging to their victim - she wasn't finding anything.

The sound of the door to the lab opening caused her to look up to see Mac joining her.

"Tell me you had more luck than I did," she said, her frustration bleeding through into her voice.

"It's a common kitchen knife," Mac said as he deposited the evidence bag on the light table. "A popular brand, available in high-end department and kitchen stores. It matches some of the other knives in her kitchen drawer, but not all of them."

"It probably belonged to her, then," Stella mused out loud with a frown. "Instead of buying a set, she may have been picking and choosing. If she's only been out of college for a few years, she might have been switching from cheap knives to something nicer piece by piece."

Mac nodded in agreement as he looked down at the lab report he carried. "The blood on it belongs to the vic, and the handle was wiped down. No prints or any other DNA."

"In other words," Stella said, "nothing."

"Not right now. But we'll find something, Stella."

But two unspoken questions hung darkly across the lab between them. Was he the type of killer who was going to kill again? And would they be able to stop him before he did?

"This is a cheery looking crowd," Dawn said from the doorway.

She looked tired, Stella thought, and frustrated. It appeared that she'd had as much luck with her interviews as they had with the evidence they collected.

"Were you able to get anything at the school?" Mac asked.

"She was well loved by all." Dawn took a seat on one of the lab stools. "Nary a bad thing to be said about her."

"Everyone has enemies," Mac pointed out. "It's just a matter of finding them."

"Well, then hers are keeping quiet," Dawn said, digging her notebook out of a pocket. "There was nothing but love for her there. Even the one teacher she came closest to not getting along with - they taught the same class, but everyone wanted to take it from her instead of him - had only good, and sincere, things to say about her."

"The ex-boyfriend?"

"Flew to Japan three days ago on a business trip, according to his employers. He's not supposed to return for three more days."

"Meaning that he couldn't possibly have been our killer." Stella stood and started pacing the lab. "I meant it when I said he's good." She started ticking things off on her fingers. "He cleaned up after himself - including bleaching the tub after his shower. He knew better than to leave blood present, but he may not have realized that bleach fluoresces, as well. Or maybe he just didn't care that he let us know that he cleaned up. He even cleaned the screen in the drain out - no hairs caught in it, and given how long Marcie Erikson's was, there should have been some."

"He wiped down the knife handle," Mac said, picking up where Stella left off. "And the wine glasses and bottle."

"Not to mention there were no prints on her body, so he possibly wiped her down as well."

"Crap." Dawn pulled her dark hair back from her face with both hands, absently wishing that she had worn it clipped back instead of loose. "Next you're going to be telling me he washed the sheets, too."

"I don't think he went that far," Stella said with a half-grin, "but I didn't get any trace off of them, either. We'll have to wait for the DNA results to return to see if he left any for us there."

"But unless Hawkes has something for us, we have a whole lot of nothing." Dawn's comment was immediately followed by the characteristic sound of a cell phone ring tone.

"Why don't we ask him," Mac said as he held up his phone. "It looks like he's finished the autopsy."

::

The morgue had always reminded Dawn of some odd cross between an old subway station and a European cathedral. The old, beige brick walls, with a constant grimy appearance thanks to decades of use, fit no more with the modern equipment than the arches and vaulted ceiling did. The huge room had cold, empty air to it until the spotlights were turned on, filling the room with bright light and accenting the architecture.

Today the room was dark, not even the windows adding any glimmers of light from the sunset. It was also empty, save a single sheet-covered body - Marcie Erikson, Dawn thought to herself as she approached - on a table to the side. Behind her, Mac ducked into the office, looking to see if Hawkes was back there. The CSI returned with the Medical Examiner not far behind him.

"Miss Erikson is just over here," Hawkes said as he led Mac and Stella over to where Dawn was already waiting. He grinned at her when he got there. "Trying to get a jump on me?"

"I just figured this was where the action was at," she said, giving him a tired smile in return.

"As I'm sure you all noticed at the scene," he said to all three of them as he pulled the sheet covering their victim back, "Miss Erikson died of blood after being stabbed several times. Eleven times, to be exact. And Mac, you were right: one of those stabs did hit an artery - her aorta took a direct hit. She bled out within seconds."

"That's consistent with the amount of blood we found at the scene and the arterial spray," Stella said, more to herself than anything else.

"And the knife wounds match the specifics you sent for the weapon found by her body," Hawkes said. "That kitchen knife is what was used to kill her."

"And it belonged to her, so we're looking at a passionate crime of opportunity." Mac frowned as he spoke.

Hawkes nodded as he uncovered Miss Erikson's arms and continued, "She has no apparent defensive wounds, and her blood alcohol content was 0.23%."

"She was likely unconscious when she was attacked," Stella said.

"That's what I was thinking," Hawkes said as he pulled the sheet back up over her body. "With that combination of alcohol content and lack of defensive wounds, I think it's likely she didn't know what hit her."

"Were there any signs of sexual activity?" Dawn asked, looking up from where she was taking notes. "Other than the fact she was found stark naked in bed?"

"Yes," Hawkes said, "but her partner used a condom. All I found was traces of spermicide."

"So," Stella said in a frustrated voice, "no DNA."

"Sorry, Stel, but this guy was careful."

"That's what we've been finding, as well," Mac said.

"And at this point, we're just assuming that the person she had sex with is the person who killed her," Dawn said. She rubbed the nape of her neck, glancing unconsciously at the windows. It was nearly full dark outside, and she was fairly certain that her shift had technically ended a couple of hours ago. She looked back over at the others as she continued, "We know he cleaned up after himself. What if she brought a partner home with her from her night out, but our killer crashed the party after he left? He would have cleaned up any traces of the partner as well as of himself."

"It's a possibility," Stella said thoughtfully, "but she lives in a pretty quiet neighborhood. Someone would have had to go out of their way to get there."

"And they likely would have brought the murder weapon with them," Mac added.

"Unless they already knew her and knew where she kept her knives," Dawn pointed out. "And we think this guy knew her, don't we?"

"The nature of the stabbing does suggest that this is someone who knew her and had strong feelings about her."

"We can't rule it out at this point," Stella admitted, "but it isn't likely that there were two different people there with her last night."

"Good luck figuring it out," Hawkes said as he followed them back to the door. "I wish I had more to give you."

"So do I, Hawkes," Dawn said quietly as she glanced back over at Marcie Erikson's sheet-draped body. As a homicide detective, it was her job to find out what happened, to provide a voice for the victims by solving the crimes. But how could she do that when she didn't have anything else to go on?

Sighing softly, she followed Mac and Stella out of the morgue. It was late, but tomorrow she was going to have to track down every person who ever knew Marcie Erikson. That was the only way they were going to find this guy.

::

Saturday morning, Dawn was awake long before her alarm went off, her mind examining every little thing she knew about the Erikson case. Unfortunately, it wasn't much. But her plan for the day was to change that.

Dawn turned off the alarm and climbed out of bed, pulling on a pair of shorts and tank. She had enough time to take a longer route on her run this morning. That was something she'd been doing more often lately. While she appreciated the results, she wasn't certain she like the implications it had on her social life - or in this case, lack thereof.

It used to be that there were nights she barely got home to get four hours of sleep before her alarm woke her. Not so much anymore. Tightening the worn laces on her running shoes, she grabbed a Rangers ball cap and hit the door. By the time she reached the pavement, she'd stopped mulling over the case, focusing on other things.

After her last (bad) breakup, it had been easy to go the clichéd route and throw herself into her work. She had still been on the Bank Robbery Task Force back then. But she, and just about everyone else in the NYPD looking to move up, had known that Briscoe was nearing retirement. And that with his retirement there would be an open spot in homicide. She'd wanted that spot and the promotion to detective.

Thanks to that hard work, she'd gotten it. Her social life, however, had yet to fully recover. Oh, she went out with the rest of the squad after a big case was closed, and she and Brustin had gone out with Mac and Stella after cases, but that wasn't the same. It'd be nice to occasionally have a night out that didn't include talking shop.

Maybe next weekend, case willing, she'd call Sam and see if she wanted to go out. It had been a while since they'd done anything together. Of course, it had also been a while since Dawn had actually talked to Sam instead of her voicemail, so maybe not.

That didn't mean she couldn't go out on her own, or call up some old friends to see if they wanted to do anything. Maybe that was what she needed to do, plan a night out after the case closed.

Dawn stopped for a bagel a couple blocks from her apartment, eating it as she cooled down, slowly walking the rest of the way home. She rarely wore a watch on her runs, instead judging the length of time by how far she had run. That mean that occasionally, on days like today when she had something to think through, she sometimes got home with a little less time than she'd like. Taking a quick shower - record-breaking in her case; she'd been teased by more than one person over how long she took in the mornings - she made it out the door and to the precinct.

No coffee this morning; she'd drink the stuff at work instead. She wasn't late, thanks to the ten-minute cushion built into her schedule, but she didn't get there at her regular time, either.

It didn't go unnoticed: Cooper was grinning at her when she entered the squadroom. "Late night last night?"

She wished. "Sorry, Coop; longer run this morning."

"Oh." He actually looked disappointed, probably wanting fuel for the gossip mill, but something else caught her eye before she could call him on it.

Unlike typical desk jobs with a Monday through Friday schedule, working Saturdays around here didn't mean it was going to be any quieter. No, possibly busier instead. There was always a full rotation on the schedule and around the precinct, ready to take calls and cases that came up. Which meant she had a full rotation of cops to choose from for the potential culprits behind this. Dawn glanced back at her desk again before turning and looking at the rest of the bullpen.

It didn't take long to figure out who was responsible: Thacker and Cooper almost immediately dissolved into laughter when she turned her exasperated look their direction. Coop had to hang onto his desk to keep from rolling out of his chair, his amusement over the whole thing funnier than the gag itself.

"Thanks, guys," Dawn said sarcastically as she sat at her desk. She pushed the plastic butcher's knife out of her way to start on her paperwork. "It's nice to know you care."

::

_He gripped his briefcase loosely, smiling casually at a few of the people who caught his eye. He felt good. He still felt good, but not as good as he had two nights ago. It hadn't been planned, it hadn't been expected, but oh, it had been exactly what he needed. His... high, if that was the way to put it, was coming down. Or, rather, he was coming down from it._

_He needed that rush again. He needed that feeling of being in control. He needed to be in control. And this time he was prepared._

_He stepped up to the bar, motioning to the bartender and ordering a beer. He didn't want anything too strong--he wanted to be able to enjoy the moment. Turning and leaning against the bar, he surveyed the crowd on the dance floor. There were a lot of possibilities out there, but none that had caught his eye. None that called to him._

_None that could be _her_._

_The door opening at the front caught his eye, and he watched a group of people coming in. They were all congregated around one woman, smiling and laughing as they talked to her. She wouldn't suit his purposes. But one of her friends might._

_He shifted the briefcase, the soft thump inside reassuring him that it was still there. Dropping a few dollars in the tip jar, he grabbed his glass and made his way along the edge of the crowd toward the group of friends. They were splintering apart now, some going to the dance floor and others grabbing a table. She was headed to the bar._

_Plastering a charming smile on his face, he retraced his steps, pausing to set his half-empty glass on an empty table. He reached the bar at the same time she did. He motioned for her to go first, then paid for hers as he got another beer. She smiled at him, the same smile the other one had had that started pleasant and appreciative but quickly turned interested._

_He'd found her._


	5. Chapter 5

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for your great reviews.  
**  
**

::

One last look in the mirror, smoothing her patterned shirt and buttoning her jacket, and Dawn grabbed her things to leave. The cafe on the corner was calling her name and she managed to get there, ordering her usual latte as well as a strawberry muffin, before her cell phone rang.

Dispatch was the only one who'd be calling her at this time of the morning. She knew that hoping she was about to be informed that someone had turned himself in and confessed to the murder of Marcie Erikson was a bit much. Instead, what she got was almost worse: another body, believed to be connected to the Erikson death.

When she arrived at the scene, Officer Wooten quickly briefed her before she entered the home. This one wasn't free standing like Erikson's home, but a row house located in an entirely different neighborhood, she thought as she passed a discarded piece of clothing in the hallway. But upon arriving in the bedroom, she could tell that the killer's handiwork was unmistakable. It was the same guy.

Sprays of blood arced across the ceiling, up from the bed where the nude body of another young woman could be found. Like Marcie Erikson, Anne Hoffman had been stabbed multiple times, her blood staining the white sheets and matting her dark brown hair.

Movement outside the bedroom door caught her attention, and she turned to see Mac and Stella with their kits in hand.

"We heard there was another one," Stella said as they surveyed the room.

Dawn nodded. "This is Anne Hoffman. Single, in her late twenties, lives alone."

"And greatly resembles Marcie Erikson," Mac pointed out.

Nodding again, Dawn glanced back at the body. While she was certain there were a number of tall, blue-eyed brunettes in the city, it wasn't a coincidence that two were murdered in the same manner within days of each other. And she was fairly certain that wasn't lost on the Deputy Inspector, either.

Not to mention it made her concerned about the other tall, blue-eyed brunettes in the city. Especially one who kept refusing to take her calls unless she needed money (or to be bailed out of jail). Dawn couldn't shake the feeling that whoever was behind this was exactly the type of guy that her sister Samantha would hook up with. She really hoped that was the older sister in her talking, who was used to Sam's shenanigans and had come to expect the worst of her, instead of the cop. "And like Marcie Erikson, as you can see she died of multiple stab wounds."

"Do we know if she and Marcie knew each other?" Stella asked as she pulled on a pair of gloves.

"As far as I can tell right now, they probably ran in different circles," Dawn said, shaking her head. "Marcie was a high school biology teacher. Anne is an accountant with Oglvie and Associates. They live in different areas of the city. The friend who found Anne hasn't ever heard of Marcie and didn't recognize a picture of her. I'll need to check further, but if I had to hazard a guess right now, it'd be no."

"Oglvie and Associates," Mac said without looking up from where he was taking pictures of the body. "That's located in the Twin Towers. I know Claire's mentioned them before--they're in the same tower as her firm."

"According to her friend - colleague - outside, Anne was one of the rising stars, though it doesn't sound like she was quite as well liked as Marcie was."

"The financial industry is a bit more cutthroat than high school," Stella said, giving Dawn a wry grin. "Anyone in the business is going to make their share of enemies."

"Especially women," Dawn said quietly. "Especially successful women. It's just the nature of the beast."

"More like the nature of the glass ceiling," Stella muttered under her breath. Dawn snorted, not so much in amusement as in agreement. Glass ceilings weren't limited to just the financial world; it was something she and Stella had both encountered on the job.

"He left the knife again," Mac said, drawing them both back to the case and body. "Do we know if any are missing from her kitchen?"

"I haven't checked yet," Dawn admitted. The kitchen hadn't been between the door and the bedroom this time, and she had gone straight to the bedroom after getting briefed.

"We can look on the way out," Stella said from where she was looking around the en suite bathroom. She continued as she returned to the bedroom, "Shower has been used again. This guy cleaned up after himself."

"I'm not finding any prints on the furniture," Mac said as he pulled a pair of tweezers from his case. "But I did find this." He lifted a tiny fiber from where it had been caught in the corner of a nightstand, depositing it in an evidence bag before passing it over to Stella to look at.

"He wiped everything down?" Stella suggested, looking at the fiber carefully. "It looks like it's the same color as the towels in her bathroom cabinet."

"So he cleans up," Dawn mused out loud, wandering to the middle of the bedroom and looking around. "And after showering he grabs an extra towel to wipe his prints off of anything he touched." She paused, looking over at Stella with a frown as she turned toward the en suite. "Were there any towels hanging in the bathroom? I don't remember seeing any, but I may have just missed them-"

"No," Stella shook her head. "There weren't any."

"He used them," Mac said. "So what did he do with them?"

Stella thought for a moment, then stepped back into the bathroom and looked around before returning to them. "He threw them away. The trashcan is empty, and the liner bag is gone. He collected all of his 'evidence' in there and took it with him to throw away."

"The bathroom trashcan at Marcie Erikson's house didn't have a liner, either," Mac added.

"And that was trash day down that street--everyone had their dumpsters out," Dawn said with a groan. "If he threw it away there, it could be halfway to Virginia by now."

"He may have taken it with him to throw away elsewhere," Stella suggested as Mac walked over to one of the windows and looked out.

"No dumpsters out along the street today, so he didn't have easy dumping grounds like he did then. It's possible he may still have it," he said to them as he surveyed the street. "Or it's possible he dumped it between here and whereever he went after he left."

"Which could be anywhere in the city," Dawn said, wrinkling her nose in frustration. "I suppose I could put out an alert for suspicious trash bags..." She let the sentence trail off unfinished as Stella snorted in amusement.

"We'd end up with a whole lot of trash bags and not a lot of evidence."

"Oh, I'm sure there'd be evidence," Mac said, grinning. "Just not the evidence we were looking for."

"As opposed to the droids you were looking for?" asked a voice from the doorway. All three of them turned to see Dr. Sid Hammerback and one of his assistants had joined them.

"Hey Sid," Stella said, waving him into the room. "No Hawkes today?"

Sid shook his head, looking over the young woman on the bed. "It would have been preferable, especially as the rumor mill suggests this is connected to Friday's body, to have him here. However, he had been called to a multi-vehicle, and multi-body, car accident before this call came in. So it looks like you'll be working with both of us on this one."

"He knows what he's doing, Sid," Mac said, referring to the killer, "so we'll need all the eyes we can get on this."

"I'll do my best." He nodded at the body as he continued, "Is she ready-?"

"Yeah," Stella said. "We were just finishing up here."

The ME and his assistant moved in, carefully transferring the body from the bed and into a body bag on the gurney they brought. Once the body was removed, Mac and Stella carefully bagged the bedding before packing up their cases.

"I'll check the kitchen to see if there's a knife missing," Stella said as she handed the evidence bags she carried to Mac.

"And I need to get more from the person who found Anne," Dawn said, pulling her notebook from her pocket. "She said something about the vic going out last night."

"Then I'll just take all of this to the truck," Mac said to empty air as the two women left, looking at the two bins he and Stella had filled with evidence bags. If he didn't know better, he'd think they'd planned that.


	6. Chapter 6

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for your great reviews.  
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::

As with Ashley Strube two days earlier, Dolores Velez looked very much like she wasn't having a good day. She was sitting sideways in the backseat of the police cruiser, her feet sticking out the door as she huddled in on herself. She looked up from where she sat when Dawn approached, tucking her thick dark hair behind an ear as tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, sniffling as she swiped at the tears that threatened to fall. "This just-" She broke off, rubbing her hands down her face.

"This isn't how you were expecting your day to go," Dawn finished for her, offering a tissue to the distraught woman. Wooten had given her a heads-up that Velez was barely holding it together, concerned that it might be best for her to wait until later to interview the woman who'd found Anne Hoffman. Dawn had stocked up on tissues and was hoping they'd be able to talk about Miss Hoffman now--she wasn't certain they had time to wait until later. "I'm Detective Dawn Flack," she continued as Miss Velez dried her tears. "I need to ask you a few questions about Anne Hoffman."

"O- okay," Dolores said hesitantly.

"How well did you know Miss Hoffman?"

"We went to grad school together, getting our MBAs at the same time." Dolores' voice grew stronger as she spoke. "It was easy to stay in touch after we graduated. Despite ending up with different firms, both of us work at the Twin Towers. We try to make a point of meeting once a week for lunch. Or tried-" She paused, pursing her lips together tightly as she centered herself.

"Did Miss Hoffman ever mention any enemies?"

"Other than half of her colleagues?" Dolores asked with a scowl. "Anne worked hard. She worked her ass off, staying later than everyone else and getting in before them. And despite that, despite knowing that, quite a few of her co-workers would get jealous and angry whenever she brought in a good contract or a new, high-profile client. She did more for her firm than several of her colleagues combined, but they were always the ones who got rewarded. She'd brush it off while at work, but when it was just us she'd complain about the hypocrisy of it all."

You have to work twice as hard to get half as much, Dawn thought to herself. That was what her father had said when she announced she was going into the Academy. He'd been against it from the beginning, having seen what women on the force had to put up with. The resulting fight had been pretty legendary, at least according to Sam when she'd crept into Dawn's room much later that night to talk. Surprisingly, her younger sister had taken Dad's side of the argument, pointing out that he wasn't just against it because of the treatment women faced as a part of the force, but also that he didn't want to lose another child. Now, as she had then, Dawn absently rubbed at the arm that had been broken in the car accident. She and Sam had been riding in the backseat during the head-on collision, coming away with just some broken bones. Their mother and brother, both in the front, hadn't been so lucky. She had listened to her sister, trying to understand where she and Dad were coming from, but that hadn't stopped her from enrolling in the Academy later that week. It had only resolved her.

The driver who'd hit their car committed his third drunk driving offense that day. While he was spending the rest of his life in prison, someone should have put him away earlier. Maybe her father had been worried about losing another child, but how many other parents had had to go through that as well? How many families could she prevent being broken like hers by doing this job?

"Do you know if any of them ever threatened her?" Dawn asked, forcing herself out of her memories and back into the present.

Shaking her head, Dolores answered, "Physically threatened? No. She never said anything to me about it, and she would have if it happened. More than once she was told that she wasn't good enough, that she was just a fluke, that eventually she'd run out of luck and then one of them would get her job. But none of them ever physically threatened her."

"I'll need their names." Dawn slid her notebook over as she spoke. "If Miss Hoffman ever mentioned anyone saying any of those things to her, I need to know who it was."

"You don't actually think any of them did it?" Dolores asked skeptically as she raised an eyebrow but took the notepad. "Seriously, I doubt any of them had the balls to do something like this. According to Anne, they were all talk."

"Probably not, but I'll still need to talk to them."

"This is some of them." Dolores handed the list of names to her after she finished. "It's not all of them, just the worst offenders - the ones Anne mentioned the most. I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but if they were mostly decent, she didn't complain about them too much."

"Thank you. You mentioned to Officer Wooten that Miss Hoffman went out last night?"

"We were celebrating." She closed her eyes tightly, brushing away the tears that crept through at the memory. "I was promoted this week, so Anne and some of our friends took me out to celebrate last night."

"Where did you go?" Dawn asked. They still didn't know where Marcie Erikson went out with her friends, as attempts to interview Tanisha Hewitt had revealed that she had left first thing Friday morning to help escort a school trip to London. It had taken the entire day on Friday to finally track her down, since she'd spent most of it on an airplane. But Dawn had been pleasantly surprised to find out that the school had immediately released her from the trip, putting her on a flight back to New York first thing Saturday morning. She had an appointment to meet with her later in the day. Maybe, if they were lucky, they'd find out that Marcie Erikson and Anne Hoffman had been having a night out at the same place. It'd make the case that much easier.

"Le Bernardin," Dolores answered, grinning at the impressed look on Dawn's face. "Yeah, I don't know how she got us the reservations, either, especially at the last minute. But she managed somehow. The food was wonderful."

"I'm sure it was, I love that place." And you had to make reservations well in advance to get in. Dawn shook her head in amazement--Hoffman definitely had some connections. "Did you leave together or separately?"

"Together; we went to Temple, down the street, for a while. Anne was planning to stay out longer when I left. I had already volunteered to usher for the early Mass today, so I didn't want to stay out too late. But we planned to get together today, go to brunch after I was finished."

"That's how you found-" Dawn paused, stopping herself from saying "the body" knowing that while such clinical terms helped deal with the things they saw on the job, it wouldn't help the distraught woman. "-Miss Hoffman?"

"I keep a spare key to Anne's house, and she holds onto one for me - in case either of us ever get locked out, it saves us the locksmith's fee. When she didn't answer, I let myself in to check on her. I just thought she'd stayed out later than planned and was sleeping in. I-I didn't think I'd find her like that."

"Do you know if she had any plans to meet up with someone last night?"

Dolores shook her head with a slight smile. "Plans, no, I don't think she did. But she wouldn't turn down an opportunity if it arose. She wasn't interested in happily ever after, at least not right now. That was the way she put it. Work was too busy, too much pressure; she didn't want to deal with a serious relationship on top of that. But something casual, without strings, where she could decompress a bit, that's something she'd go for if she had the chance. That's all she was interested in right now."

"When you went out, was there anyone who seemed interested as well?"

"Not that I noticed." She blushed lightly as she spoke. "I, um, was a bit busy. Anne had invited a bunch of people, and we all went out to the club afterward. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk to me, congratulate me. I lost track of Anne not long after we arrived and didn't run into her again until just before I left."

"She didn't mention anything then?"

"No, she just said that we should meet up today. So we made the plans for me to come over-" Her voice caught, cracking with sadness. She took a deep, ragged, breath. "And that's when I found her. Like that."

"Does she often bring someone home with her that she's met while out clubbing?"

"She has before, but it's not like she does it all the time. Just on occasion, if she meets someone she really clicks with. I can think of two or three guys she's brought home in the past, but that's it. She had something going on with each of them for a few months before it ended, so it wasn't really a one-night stand, just someone she could have some fun with for a while."

"Thank you, Miss Velez," Dawn said, standing as she ended the interview. She dug a card out of a pocket, handing over as she continued, "Please contact me if you think of anything else. No matter what, it'll be useful. Do you need help getting home?"

At Dolores' nod, Dawn waved over Officer Wooten, asking him to help her home. As he drove away with her witness, Dawn ran her hand over her head, smoothing down her hair as she thought. She had a bit more now than she did with the Erikson case. She'd have even more if Temple had surveillance cameras, or someone there remembered Hoffman and whom she'd left with, but that was a pretty big if. There was also the hope that the CSIs, who'd left while she was talking with Miss Velez, had found something useful as well. But she was going to have to wait a while before she got any--if she got any--good news from them.

Her coffee had stayed in the car this time, what little that remained at the bottom of the cup turning bitter as it cooled. She frowned after taking a sip of it, setting it aside to get a new cup instead. Mentally reviewing her schedule for the day of whom she had to meet with and when, she turned her car towards a coffee shop she'd passed on the way in. It was time for a refill. And to try to call Sam again to check in and see if this time she'd answer. If not, then Moran - her old training partner when she's been in uniform - still owed her a few favors.


	7. Chapter 7

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for your great reviews.  
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::

Dawn beat them to the morgue, Mac noted when he and Stella arrived. She was talking quietly with Sid near the gurney that held Anne Hoffman's sheet-covered body. Both looked up when the CSIs entered, the tension that had settled in around the corners of her eyes and mouth illustrating how well her morning interviews had gone.

"Mac, Stella," Sid said by way of greeting before moving straight into his findings. "As I was telling Detective Flack, here, Miss Hoffman was stabbed to death. She was stabbed a dozen times, total, by a single edged-blade about ten inches long. I made molds of her wounds, so you'll have something to compare to. I understand there was a kitchen knife by the body?"

"Yes," Mac said. "Straight-edged blade of ten inches. I'll compare the molds to it first. Considering the blood on it and the location where it was found, it is likely the murder weapon."

"There were other knives at the scene, as well," Stella explained. "Down in the kitchen, but we have them to compare against too."

"Good," Dawn said quietly. "Was the knife one of hers?"

"She had several of the same brand in her kitchen, but like with Marcie Erikson, not a full set of any one brand. At this point, it'd make sense that it was her knife."

"What else did you have for us, Sid?" Mac asked, turning the conversation back to the autopsy findings. They could discuss the evidence from the scene later.

"Miss Hoffman was sexually active up until the time of her death. She has some slight bruising along her neckline-"

"They're called hickeys, Sid," Dawn teased lightly, though it didn't reach her eyes.

"Yes, well, she has several others on her inner thighs as well. It appears she was quite intimate with someone prior to her death."

"Were you able to get any DNA?" Stella asked him.

"I swabbed, but DNA is unlikely. There was a spermicide present; it's more likely that a condom was used."

Mac nodded, unsurprised. "That's what Hawkes suggested, also. Dr. Parsons wasn't able to pull any DNA from the swap he took from Marcie Erikson."

"There isn't much else to add," Sid continued. "Flack mentioned that Anne went out the night she died, and her stomach contents and blood alcohol levels suggest that she'd had quite a bit to drink, but nothing else is remarkable. The rest is in my report."

"Enough alcohol that she passed out?" Mac asked, thinking back to Marcie Erikson.

"Her blood alcohol content wasn't as high as Marcie Erikson's," Sid said. "I checked that against the other file, and Anne's was only .15%. Still quite high, but I can't say whether or not it was high enough to have caused her to pass out. Considering the lack of defensive wounds, I would say that it's likely she was either asleep or unconscious when the attack took place. The alcohol could have contributed to that."

"She had no idea she brought a killer home with her," Stella said softly as Sid pulled the sheet back up to cover the body. "She likely thought she'd just found a nice guy she could have a fun night with."

"That's the way it sounded from talking with her friend," Dawn added as they walked to the morgue's door. "While she didn't make a habit of it, she had on occasion brought someone home. We know what club she was at, and I have an interview scheduled with the manager for tomorrow - he went upstate to visit family this morning and will return late this evening. From what I've been able to get from the friends she went out with, she was the last to leave. Did you have anything else on the knife?"

"It's most likely that the knife found by the body was the murder weapon. It matches some, but not all of the knives in her kitchen. She probably didn't own a full set of any one brand, like with Miss Erikson."

"Heck, I don't own a full set of any one brand," Dawn scoffed. "You don't need that many knives, just a good chef's knife, paring knife, and bread knife. Maybe a couple of steak knives, depending on how many people you regularly feed and how often you have steaks. Those twelve or fifteen knife sets are for the birds. And people who don't know any better and just want to show them off in a knife block on their counters."

Stella hid a grin, catching Mac's eye and noticing he was doing much the same. It was well known around the precinct that Dawn took her food seriously. As the resident foodie, she was asked for her opinion of various restaurants more often than you'd expect. And it didn't matter how out of the way it was; if it was in Manhattan, she probably knew about it. Not quite as many people knew she was a stellar cook as well, but if you were lucky you could get a home-cooked meal out of her. Or, if you were seriously ill, the homemade chicken soup Dawn had brought Stella the last time she was sick had been impressively delicious. The two of them had sat up far longer than Stella should have talking about food and favorite recipes. They still had a standing date to sometime get together when their schedules allowed and spend the day cooking - Dawn had promised to share her mother's corned beef recipe, and Stella had offered to teach her to make moussaka.

But she wasn't certain that Mac was also noticing the slightly frantic undertones to Dawn's voice. There was something about the case that was beginning to get to her, Stella thought to herself as Mac replied to Dawn.

"We'll know shortly if the knife was the weapon used, now that we have the mold." He lifted the object in question, which Sid had given him as they left the morgue. "I'm going to start on that now. Keep us apprised of what you're finding."

Dawn nodded, tucking her notebook away and trying to surreptitiously check her phone for new calls as she dug through her pocket. Nothing.

"You okay?" Stella asked after Mac left, concern etched on her face.

"Fine," Dawn said, knowing that she didn't sound very convincing. Stella's response was a single raised brow. She tried to brush it off. "It's nothing."

"Uh-huh."

"You know, I like Sid well enough," Dawn continued, giving in, "but he seems to have noticed what everyone else has about the victims."

"Their similarity in appearance to you?"

"There was a plastic butcher's knife - the kind you get at a gag gift shop - on my desk when I got in yesterday morning. Today another one joined it."

"Nice." Stella pressed her lips together, though that didn't stop the corners of her mouth from tipping upwards in amusement.

"Yeah," Dawn shook her head. "It was kinda funny--those were, at least. But it's not quite as funny when the coroner starts expounding on just how much the vics look like you."

"Ah, side trip to the creepy place?"

"To the very creepy place," Dawn suppressed a shudder. It hadn't been herself lying on that slab that she'd been thinking about as he went on and on. "It's just that..." she paused, releasing a chuff of air as she rubbed the back of her neck. "I haven't heard from Sam lately. And I haven't been able to reach her. I'm sure it's nothing, but it's just-"

It was hard to articulate her concern. But she knew Sam and Dad rarely, if ever, spoke - Dad had pretty much cut her off once she started getting into trouble. Sam only called Dawn when she needed help and Dad wouldn't. While it was probably pretty silly of her to worry that this guy had gotten to her little sister, as well, she couldn't help but wonder just how anyone would find out. It wasn't like she expected any of Sam's friends to be responsible enough to notice if she'd disappeared for a few days. Maybe she was selling them short, but if the few she met were any example, she wasn't certain that together they had two brain cells to rub together.

"I guess I'm just worried about her," she finished lamely.

"Sam?"

"Samantha. My younger sister."

"Are you two very close?"

Dawn couldn't help but snort in amusement at that thought. "Not really. Not anymore. We-" She paused, trying to explain. "-we're very different people with very different values."

"In other words, she's the rebel in the family?"

"Who only calls when she needs money or to be bailed out of jail." Dawn barely cracked a smile. "I threatened her with a wellness check in my last message. She still has-" She quickly checked her watch. "-about five hours to get back to me, and then I'm sending Moran over to knock on her door. If anything will get her to call back, it'll be that."

::

The sun was bright in the sky when Dawn pulled up outside of Tanisha Hewitt's apartment building. While her list of people to talk to had become shorter in the intervening hours, her list of what she knew about the previous night hadn't gotten much longer. Anne Hoffman had stayed at the club longer than any of the friends she went with, and none of them could think of anyone in particular that she had spent time with while there.

Shoving her keys down in her pocket, Dawn double-checked the apartment number before going inside. The building was nice--nicer than she'd expected on a teacher's salary, but Hewitt taught at a private school and perhaps was paid better.

Her knock was answered by a tall man about her height, maybe a bit taller, with deep brown skin and eyes. "Yes?"

"Detective Dawn Flack," she said as she offered her badge. "I'm here to speak with Tanisha Hewitt."

He nodded, showing her into the apartment. "My sister, she's expecting you. I've been staying with her since she got back. This guy--I just want to make certain he doesn't get close to her."

"I understand, sir," Dawn said as she followed him into the living room.

"Jamal," he said, "Jamal Hewitt." He turned to the woman who had joined them. "Tanisha, this is the detective you were waiting for."

"Thank you, Jamal." She gave him a sad smile as he patted her on the shoulder before leaving them alone. "He worries," she said by way of explanation to Dawn.

"Older siblings do," Dawn replied.

Tanisha Hewitt was shorter than her older brother, Dawn noticed as they sat in chairs opposite one another with a coffee table in between. Her long braids were pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and she had on a sweatshirt that had once had a university crest on it, which had long since faded away in the wash. "He seems to think I'm going to be this guy's next target. I tried to tell him it's unlikely, but-" She shrugged, shaking her head. "-he just wants to worry."

"Probably with good reason," Dawn said quietly. "There was another murder last night; we believe that it was connected to Marcie Erikson's death. Do you know an Anne Hoffman?"

"I haven't heard the name before. I don't think that Marcie ever mentioned her." she took the picture that Dawn held out, looking over it before passing it back. "She looks at lot like Marcie."

"She does."

Tanisha covered her mouth, making a half-sob, half-laughing sound. "Oh lord. Jamal doesn't have much reason to worry, does he? This guy isn't going to come after a black woman, is he?"

"It is beginning to look like he has a type," Dawn said, pushing a box of tissues closer as the other woman began wiping her eyes.

"I feel bad that Marcie and that other poor woman died, but at the same time I'm relieved because I'm never going to fit his bill. Is that awful of me?"

"No," Dawn said, perhaps more forcefully than she intended. She blushed when Tanisha looked up at her. "Never feel guilty for being a survivor. Mourn the family and friends you lost, but never feel guilty."

Tanisha nodded, dabbing at her eyes again with the tissue before she began. "I usually stay later when we go out. Usually Marcie and I are the ones to close the joint down--we're the two singletons left in the group. But since I was leaving the next morning, I left as soon as we finished eating at Keens. I know that Micah and Ronnie went with her to Spotlight up in Midtown, but I don't know how much longer they stayed out."

"Micah and Ronnie?"

"Micah Leblanc and Rhonda - Ronnie - Moss. The four of us did our undergraduate studies together. We met during our sophomore year and just clicked." Tanisha glanced at a picture hanging on the wall, of three young women and a young man laughing together. Dawn was able to pick her and Marcie Erikson out in the photo. "The going out on Thursday nights started around then; our Friday course loads were usually pretty light, so Thursday night was a good time for us to get together - we had jobs that kept us busy over the weekend. It just became a habit, one we've tried to keep up since graduating and moving on. We changed it from weekly to monthly a few years ago. After Micah's wedding, he and Berinda, his wife, moved out to Jersey City. It works better with their schedule to meet once a month than weekly."

"I'll need to know how to contact them," Dawn said. "Do you know if she was seeing anyone or mentioned anyone when you met?"

"No, nothing like that," Tanisha said as she stood and retrieved a PDA from her handbag. She handed it over to Dawn after calling up two addresses on the screen. "She was enjoying being single again. Lately when we've gone out she's flirted a bit, but nothing more than that."

"How usual is it for her to bring someone home?" Dawn asked after she added the information to her notebook.

"I won't say it never happened, but it was out of the ordinary." She fiddled with one of her braids as she spoke. "She was careful, usually suggesting a hotel if she was interested in spending the night with someone she met. But occasionally, if they really seemed to click, she'd bring him home, usually only if she thought they had potential to be something more than just one night. The last guy I knew about was a contractor who rehabbed houses, something she had been doing out at her place. I think she took him home more to show off her progress than anything else. They were good together, but they weren't together long - it wasn't that serious. They only dated for a month or two."

"Do you know his name?"

"Mike something. I'm not certain exactly, but Ronnie would know. Marcie hooked her and Kari up with him to do some renovations on their apartment."

"Did Marcie ever mention anyone that she felt threatened by? Past boyfriends, colleagues, neighbors?"

"No. She got along with most everyone she met. It was rare for her not to. It's something I would have remembered, her mentioning anything like that. And she never did." Tanisha studied her hands as she spoke. "I'm not being much help, am I? I'm sorry."

"No, this is very useful. This is the kind of information I need," Dawn said reassuringly. "Is there anything else, something that she may have mentioned that stuck out to you?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"Thank you for your help." Dawn stood, digging a copy of her card out from her pocket. "If you can think of anything else, please don't hesitate to contact me."

Tanisha accompanied her to the door. "Thank you. I'll contact you if there's anything."


	8. Chapter 8

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for your great reviews.  
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Spotlight was a bar that Dawn had been to a few times, but not many, and it took her an extra trip around the block to not only find it but a place to park. The spot she found was at the other end of the block, so she wove her way through tourists, A-frame signs (restaurant specials and hotels welcoming conventioneers), and a rather frazzled-looking dog walker to get there. It was late enough in the afternoon that inside the bartender was beginning to prepare for the evening rush when she stepped inside, nodding at her.

"What can I get you?"

"How about some answers?" she asked, holding up her shield.

He glanced to the door behind her, then shrugged and motioned for her to pull up a seat. "I'm always happy to help one of New York's finest," he said, stressing "finest" as he looked her over. "What do you need?"

Dawn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She offered a picture of Marcie Erikson to him. "Do you remember her?"

"Thursday night," he said, nodding as he handed it back. "Came in with some friends, but they both left before she did."

"Do you remember who she left with?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. It was a busy night. I just remember her because she ordered a Pimm's cup. It's not a popular drink. You always remember those odd requests. There was a guy chatting her up, he seemed like the business type. Bought her a drink or two."

"Did you get his name?"

"Nah. And he paid cash. Sorry."

"The camera by the door, can I get copies of the footage from Thursday?"

"You could if it worked." He leaned on the bar, closer to her. "Just between me and you, it's all for show. The boss doesn't want to pay for a real system, but he wants the illusion of security. People see it when they're coming in and they think they're safe, or that maybe it isn't a good idea to do something stupid."

"He might want to start rethinking that idea," she said, "or else all it might take is just one lawsuit from a victim's family to change it for him."

"So something did happen to her? You wouldn't be here if it hadn't."

"She was murdered," Dawn said as she stood. "Probably by the person she left here with. That surveillance footage would have been very useful in identifying him. Did you get a good look at her admirer?"

"Not good enough. Average height, average build, dark hair, and wearing a suit. He looked like half the other men who come in here. There wasn't anything about him that stood out." He shrugged. "And I have no idea if they left together or not. I didn't see either of them go. We were packed; I couldn't see two feet past the bar."

She nodded, knowing what those kinds of nights were like from talking to Sam. She slipped her card across the bar to him. "If you see anything suspicious, give me a call, okay?"

"Anything to get to see you again," he said, grinning at her as he pocketed it.

This time she did roll her eyes.

::

Stella was in her office when Dawn arrived at the lab. She knocked on the glass door, sipping at her coffee as Stella waved her in.

"Get anything else yesterday?" the other detective asked as Dawn took a seat.

Dawn shook her head. She had gotten more, but not anything that helped them catch this guy. "Tracked down the information on the contractor, Mike Bailey. He never met Anne Hoffman, his alibi checks out, and he confirmed that his relationship with Erikson had been more about trading DIY tips than finding their one true love. I'm heading out to Jersey City after this to meet with Micah Leblanc. Rhonda Moss didn't have much--she didn't stay out long after they arrived at Spotlight--but Leblanc was still there when she left."

"That was the club with the fake security cameras?"

"Yeah. Please tell me you got something from the footage I got at Temple."

"Good news and bad news. We were able to find footage of Anne Hoffman entering and leaving the club." Stella tucked a strand of curly hair behind her ear as she located a file folder on her desk. Finding it, she pulled out several stills from the footage and handed them to Dawn. "She arrived with a group of friends like Dolores said, but she stayed later than any of them. We have a still of her leaving the club, but it isn't a good shot of the man she left with. He's about the same height, dark hair, suit, and briefcase. No shot of his face."

"Matches what the bartender said about him at Spotlight. Either this is the most forgettable man in the world," Dawn said as she looked over the pictures, tipping her head to the side as she examined the frame of the couple leaving, "or he knew where the cameras were and how to avoid them."

"I'll go with the latter," Stella said, grinning slightly. "If he was that forgettable, I don't see these women taking him home. There had to be something that attracted them."

"It fits with how careful he's being," Dawn pointed out. "He's bagging his own trash and taking it with him. Of course he's going to know where the cameras are. He's a boy scout: Be Prepared."

"Which he continued at the last scene. There was no DNA or prints present other than Anne's. The blood was all hers, the knife found by the body was the murder weapon-"

"And likely belonged to her."

"Right. And he bleached the shower again."

"Cleaning it out after using it to clean himself up." She thought for a moment, then looked up at Stella. "You know, a guy could probably fit a change of clothes in a briefcase, or at least the important stuff. Depending on where everything ended up when it they were undressing-"

"Anne Hoffman's dress was in the hallway," Stella added. "If clothes were coming off as they made their way to her bedroom, his suit could have been in the hallway, as well."

"Say he went in with that in mind. He could have easily set a pace that resulted in them getting naked in the hallway. Considering that, he may have only needed to make sure that he had a spare shirt and underwear. Easy to fit in a briefcase."

"But why bring a spare set of clothes and use her knife?" Stella asked. "For someone whose motto seems to be 'be prepared', he is leaving that to chance."

"I don't know?" Dawn shook her head as she considered the question, then started thinking out loud. "A briefcase can only hold so much. It was unlikely that she'd have a spare set of men's clothes for him, but nearly everyone has at least one kitchen knife on hand. Even people who don't cook much will at least have something sharper than a butter knife for the occasions they, say, get fresh fruit like a cantaloupe to go with their microwave dinners. It is more likely that a single woman living alone would have a knife on hand than a change of clothes for him."

"That would make sense," Stella said. "And it fits in the realm of what someone would likely have in their briefcase. A guy is more likely to have a spare shirt than a kitchen knife. If it came open accidentally-"

"Or if the woman he went home with opened it on purpose."

"-it wouldn't raise any questions."

"So," Dawn said, looking at her notebook, "we're looking for a tall white male with dark hair wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase. That's only half the city."

"Good luck finding him."

"Oh, I'm beginning to think I'm going to need it." She looked around the lab as she finished her coffee. "Where's Mac?"

"Meeting with the Chief of Detectives."

"Oh. Maybe he's the one who needs the good luck." She didn't say anything else, though she had an idea what, and whom, the meeting was about. Nobody had said anything to her about the case yet, and if anyone did suggest that she turn it over to someone "more experienced" she was going to fight tooth and nail to keep it. Two deaths didn't make a serial killer. Yet. Tossing the cup in the trash, she stood. "I'm off to Jersey City to meet with Marcie's other friend; who knows what time I'll get back to the city."

"It's not that far."

"You kidding? It's practically in another state!"

"Dawn, it _is_ in another state."

"My point exactly."

::

_He watched her leave, fighting to keep his fury from showing on his face. How _dare_ she!_

__

He turned back to the bar, signaling to the bartender for a refill. He tried to give her a pleasant smile, her sympathetic look grating on his nerves. For a second he wished she was a brunette instead of a redhead. Her eyes were the right color. And it'd serve her right. He didn't need sympathy.

No. He needed to find what he'd come here for. He forced himself to calm down, giving her a nonchalant smile as he stepped away from the bar. No need for her to have any reason to remember him.

Not that anyone ever did. Sometimes it paid to just be average.

_He found a table in a dark corner and seated himself so he could watch the door. No need to look on the dance floor; he'd already checked. There was no one there who would suit his purposes. He'd see _her_ when she came in._

__

It took longer than he wanted. He was about to give up and move on--the only reason he'd chosen this place was because of his meeting next door--but then the door opened and in came a group of women.

There she was.

She made a beeline for the bar, ordering a set of shots that she and her friends all drank, then ordering another as many of them drifted away to the dance floor. Her heartache was written all over her face. She was here to forget.

He could help with that.

Smiling, he returned to the bar, his briefcase heavy in his hand. A reminder. He needed to to catch her attention quickly. He didn't have much time, not if he wanted to be ready for his meetings in the morning. He didn't know where she lived, how far out. And it was later than he'd planned.

The bartender glanced at him as he paid for her next shot, handing him another beer as she glanced back at her. Of course. She remembered what happened earlier.

_But that was no matter. He'd found _her_. He had a plan. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. The face of girl!Flack, Dawn Flack, is Stana Katic. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for reading and reviewing!  
**  
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::

She was beginning to hate starting her mornings like this, Dawn thought to herself as she pulled up to the apartment building. Dispatch had called her immediately, the officers on the scene recognizing its connection to her cases from their briefings. The scene was in a different neighborhood again, this time an apartment instead of a house. But the blood-soaked bedroom and blue-eyed, brunette victim were the same.

Pushing her own brown hair back from her face in frustration, Dawn concentrated on looking over the room, looking for something, anything, that they could use to find this guy. She knew that she wasn't a CSI, and it was doubtful she'd notice anything they didn't, but she just felt so useless right now. They had nothing so far, and as the lead detective on the case, it was her fault, no one else's. The longer it took her to get this guy off the streets, the more women he murdered.

She glanced at the bedroom doorway when she heard steps in the hallway. Mac and Stella soon came into view, crime scene kits in hand.

"We came as quickly as we could," Stella said as she looked around the room. "What do we have?"

"Kelli Rowe, late twenties, designer. She was found by her sister this morning; they were supposed to meet for coffee before going in to work. When she didn't show, sis came by to check on her."

"Do we know if she went out last night?"

"She did. She broke up with her long-time boyfriend over the weekend, so her sister and some of their girlfriends took her out for a night on the town."

"And she probably met someone, thought he was safe to take home with her, and this happened." Stella shook her head as she pulled out her camera and started taking pictures of the scene. "This is why I have a no guys in my apartment rule."

"Exactly," Dawn said with a nod. "If you really have to hook up with them, you're careful. That's what hotel rooms are for. With lobbies that have security cameras and a nice paper trail in the form of credit card receipts."

Mac watched them both with an intrigued look on his face. "I didn't realize so much thought went into a one-night stand."

"That's because you're a guy, Mac," Stella replied quietly. "Most guys, if they even stop to think about safety, are just thinking in terms of condoms, STDs, and, maybe, unplanned pregnancies. Physical safety isn't necessarily as important to them."

"They usually don't have to worry about whether or not the person they're with can overpower them, rape them." Dawn paused, glancing at the bed. "Or worse."

"Did her friends see who she left with? Or get a name?"

"Yes and no. I've already scheduled them to work up an E-FIT, but all I've gotten from the sister so far is that he had dark hair, was wearing a suit, carried a briefcase, and 'looked nice'. Apparently that was all the criteria she needed to send her sister off with a stranger." Dawn held her hands up when Stella gave her a disapproving look. "I know, I know. I didn't say anything to her. From the looks of the hangover she and her friends are nursing, I don't think any of them were thinking too clearly."

"This guy is purposefully preying on women too alcohol-impaired to use good judgment, who'll let their guard down more easily," Mac suggested. "By targeting women who are drunk, he's more likely to get someone to agree to his suggestion of going back to their place."

"Well, he can't take them back to his," Stella pointed out.

"Why not?" Dawn asked, frowning at them. "Think about it: he has to have a good reason to make the suggestion of their place - usually you offer your own or a hotel for a hook-up like this, not invite yourself to someone else's home. It's just polite. Otherwise most women, even if they weren't planning or wanting to go back to his place, are going to wonder why he doesn't suggest that. And since he's been consistent about killing them in their beds, in their homes, he has to be making sure they go back to her place. Either he's lucky enough to find women who are making the first move each time and inviting him home, or he has a good argument to go back to their place."

"Good point," Stella said, thinking out loud. "A guy might have any number of reasons to not take a woman back to his place, but most of them aren't good. Such as, say, his wife is there."

"Or the babysitter with the kids."

"Or any number of things."

"So," Mac interrupted, trying to take the conversation back to the point, "we know he has to be giving them a reason to not go back to his place."

"And it has to be a plausible reason, Mac," Stella reminded him. "These women may have made a bad choice in bringing him home, but from the sounds of it they weren't born yesterday. They were smart and fairly careful; he even convinced Kelli Rowe's sister he was safe. He had to have a good, plausible reason that he couldn't take them home with him. Otherwise, even if they were drunk, he risked turning them off and losing his target."

"He's introducing himself as a businessman," Mac said. "In the city on business?"

"Then he'd have a hotel room they could go to," Dawn said, shaking her head. "I wouldn't buy it. Even if he had a roommate, it's a hotel. You could get another room in it."

"Neither would I," Stella added.

Mac nodded in agreement and said, "So he has to have a good reason they can't go somewhere else."

"And we need to find out what that is," Dawn said as she looked around the room. "That's how he's hooking them."

::

Marks looked up from his crossword puzzle when she returned to the precinct. "Flack," he said, waving her over and continuing in a low voice, "Gerrard wants to talk to you."

"Of course he does." Dawn sighed, glancing over at the bullpen where her fellow detectives were watching her. "That explains why Vicaro is looking positively giddy."

"Nah," Marks said, chuckling. "That's just 'cause he's an ass."

"That, too," she said, giving him a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes. But she steeled herself as she turned and walked through the bullpen, past her desk (with its growing collection of gag gifts from the squad), Vicaro, and the others, back to Gerrard's door.

His secretary waved her in without her needing to ask, giving her a sympathetic look that grated. She didn't want sympathy. She didn't need sympathy. She was a damn good cop and a good detective. She knew it, Marks knew it, hell, even Vicaro - who would never admit it and was doing his best to try to help her screw up - knew she was good at her job. And Gerrard knew it, too.

The Deputy Inspector was reading over a report, setting it aside to give her his full attention when she entered. "Detective Flack, thank you for coming in."

She nodded, not quite trusting herself to not point out that she didn't have much choice in the matter if she spoke. Maybe if this were Mac, Stella, or Brustin she'd be okay with smarting off like that, but Gerrard could easily make her life living hell. She knew enough about office politics to not want to draw his ire.

"How is the case going?"

She didn't need to ask which one. They all worked on more than one case at a time. Despite knowing that chances to catch a murderer were drastically reduced at forty-eight hours, everyone had more than one that wasn't closed. There were a couple that she and Brustin occasionally got new leads on that she still considered her cases, regardless of no longer having a training partner. But there was only one case that Gerrard would be interested in right now.

As she started to reply, Dawn chose her words carefully, knowing that if she sounded too flippant, too modest, or too sure of herself she could be in hot water. Too flippant and she wasn't taking the case seriously enough; too modest and she wasn't qualified for her job; too sure of herself and questions would come as to why she hadn't solved it yet. It was a fine line, but she'd walked a similar line for years with her father.

"We have some new information," she said in careful, measured tones. "We're still following up on it, however, I am hopeful it will turn out to be a good lead."

"Hopeful? What kind of information is this?"

"Our latest victim's sister and friends were with her last night and met the man she left the bar with. They've put together an E-FIT, which I'll be taking with me to Porter's. When I interview the employees who were there last night, I'll see if any of them recognize him. And, of course, I'll check to see if they have any security cameras that we can get footage from."

"The last two locations didn't have security cameras?"

"The first bar had dummy cameras--they were there, but they didn't work. The second had cameras, but he knew where they were and was able to obscure his face. That's why the E-FIT is so important."

"Even if there are cameras, he may have gotten out past them again."

Dawn nodded. "I'll be speaking with Ms. Rowe further this afternoon, but from what she gave me this morning, it appears she didn't get his name when her sister left with him."

"Of course she didn't." Gerrard rolled his eyes. He quickly turned serious, though. "How close are you, Flack? In all seriousness."

"Sir--" she took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders before continuing. "He's good. And careful. He removed all physical evidence of his presence at the first two scenes. I'd hazard a bet that the CSIs will find he did the same last night. Ms. Rowe and her friends are the first witnesses we've had, people who actually spoke with him before the victim left with him. And truthfully, sir, they aren't the most reliable. Ms. Rowe has admitted to being drunk at the time, and the physical description she gave me prior to starting the E-FIT was extremely vague. The only other person who may have seen him, the bartender at the second club, gave a similarly vague description. He's white, five-ten to six-foot, dark hair, wears a suit, and carries a briefcase. We need a usable E-FIT or a security camera shot of him."

"No other witnesses?"

"Marcie Erikson's friends all left before she did; she stayed out later, and no one in her neighborhood saw her return home or saw anyone leave during the night. Similar story with Anne Hoffman's friends. Kelli Rowe is the first of the victims who left the bar with her murderer before her companions did. With no evidence at the scenes, we're going to need witnesses to catch this guy. And so far we don't have many." She took a ragged breath, praying he didn't notice. "He hasn't made a mistake yet, and we need him to make that mistake."

"You better hope he does," Gerrard said harshly, "or find some other way to catch him. The mayor's office is making phone calls; they want us to catch this guy. I need to be able to tell the mayor that we're making progress. And I need it now."

"Understood, sir."

"I expect regular updates from hereon out. You learn something new, I'm the first person to know. If you can't do that.." he let the threat hang between them.

She nodded again, fairly certain that Vicaro would love to pull the case out from under her. "I'll keep you in the loop."

"Not just in the loop, Flack. I _am_ the loop."

"Got it," she said as her phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen, it was a message from the ME's office. "If you'll excuse me, sir. I have an autopsy to get to."

"Go. And Flack," he said as she turned back to him. "This case is the kind that can make or break a career. Don't think I haven't noticed the victims' resemblance to you or don't know about what's going on out there." He motioned to the squadroom. "I don't want you to let that get to you. Otherwise I _will_ pull you off the case."


	10. Chapter 10

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for reading and reviewing!  
**  
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::

The morgue seemed crowded when she arrived, with Stella, Mac, Hawkes, and Sid waiting for her. They were standing around Kelli Rowe's body, Hawkes waving her over as soon as she joined them.

"We may have caught a break," he said.

She stared at him, refusing to let her hopes get too high. "Please tell me you aren't kidding."

"Nope, not kidding at all." He pulled the sheet back, revealing their victim's face. "As with the other victims, Kelli Rowe was stabbed multiple times. I've taken a molding of the entry wounds for Mac."

"We'll be able to tell if the knife found by the body was the murder weapon."

"It likely is," Stella said. "But considering this is the third victim and the case is beginning to get a lot of press, we want to double-check everything."

Dawn nodded, frowning at the body impatiently. "This is good to know, but I'm not seeing a break here."

"I haven't gotten there yet," Hawkes chided gently.

"Then don't let me hold you up," she retorted sharply. She rubbed her forehead, trying to relieve some of the tension there as she apologized. "Sorry. It's just I've got Gerrard breathing down my neck over this, and I'm pretty sure Vicaro's counting the ways he can try to steal the case. I need to be able to show them some progress."

"Hey, it's okay. We're all wound a little tight." Hawkes offered a friendly smile before he continued. "As I was about to say, Kelli Rowe was sexually active prior to her death."

Sid was damn near bouncing with excitement, Dawn noted, and he cut in before Hawkes could continue. "We, once again, found traces of spermicide."

"But," Hawkes continued, lifting a petri dish from a nearby cart to hand to the CSIs, "we found something else."

"A piece of plastic?" Stella asked, looking at it before passing it over to Mac.

"We believe it was part of the condom," Sid explained.

"Part of the condom-" Dawn paused, staring at the dish before turning back to the MEs. "The condom broke?"

"We think so," Hawkes said. "We were also able to recover seminal fluid, including spermatozoa."

"So we have DNA?"

"It's on its way to Dr. Parsons as we speak," Sid answered. "I took the liberty of putting a rush on it. I figured it'd be a priority."

Stella grinned, as much in relief as amusement. "I think that's all right. Thank you."

"Hopefully he's in the system so you have something to compare it to," Hawkes said as he followed them to the door.

"I don't know," Dawn mused, once they were outside the morgue. "He still killed her. And cleaned up. Despite knowing that the condom broke. I don't think he's in the system."

"No?"

"If he was, he had to have known when the condom broke that the jig was up, that we'd be onto him and be able to identify him as a result," Dawn said, shaking her head slightly. "Think about it. They had sex before he killed her, so he knew the condom broke before he stabbed her. What would you have done in that situation? Probably gotten the hell out of there and found someone else. Maybe played it cool long enough to get out of there without raising any suspicion. But a smart perp would have left her alive, where she wouldn't have become a part of our case and we never would have made the connection. She would have just been some woman whose one night stand left abruptly. She probably wouldn't have even found that odd and most likely wouldn't have reported it."

"Instead, he still killed her, but cleaned up as he did before," Mac said, following her train of thought. "He knows that he isn't in the system, so unless we are able to get a sample from him, we can't use the DNA to identify her killer at this time. We just have the DNA of an unknown male."

"But he still cleaned up, because that's part of the routine. Because he's being careful," Stella continued. "He might possibly be worried that some of the other potential evidence is more likely to finger him--and about taking anything from the crime scene out with him. By showering, he's getting her blood, her DNA, off of him so that it can't be used to incriminate him."

"Fingerprints maybe?" Dawn asked, her brow furrowed. "He's introducing himself as a business man, and he's probably sticking to what he knows. It's safer that way: it's not as much of a lie, and he's less likely to get caught. A lot of businesses require their employees to get fingerprinted these days."

"While those prints usually don't end up in the databases we'd normally check, he might not know that," Mac pointed out as the elevator doors closed behind him and they headed up toward the lab. "If he was fingerprinted for his job and knows that those prints are out there and can identify him, he's going to be far more concerned about that than any DNA that isn't in the system yet."

"Plus," Stella said with a sigh, "all the DNA proves is that he slept with her. Without any of the other evidence that he's been systematically destroying, we're going to have a much more difficult time proving that he actually killed her."

"Any defense lawyer worth his salt is going to argue that the murder happened after he left," Dawn said, continuing Stella's line of thought.

"Then we need the evidence to place him at the scene at the time of death along with his identity." The creaky elevator came to a shuddering stop as he spoke, opening to the lab's floor. Mac turned to her, changing the subject as they stepped off. "Vicaro's giving you problems?"

"Nah," she said, shaking her head and waving it off.

"But you said-"

"Vicaro started giving me problems my third week on the job. He stopped in my third year, after he made an inappropriate and unfortunately timed remark when I was working an undercover case - still wearing my wire. The only reason he still has a job is because I'm not interested in being the reason a semi-decent cop got fired, regardless of what my partner wanted to do at the time. And Vicaro knows it." She sighed and looked at the tiled wall, suddenly feeling very tired. "He also might have reason to believe that if he starts giving me, or any other women on the force, problems again, that recording is going to find its way to Gerrard's desk. He doesn't particularly like that idea, so while he's cleaned up his act and can't actively try to sabotage my career, he sure can cheer from the sidelines as I screw things up on my own."

"You aren't screwing this up, Dawn," Stella said, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. "You're doing pretty good, all things considered. Heck, probably better than a few others I could name."

"Thanks," she said quietly, not particularly convinced. She glanced over at Mac, who was giving her an unreadable look.

"You're blackmailing Vicaro?" he asked.

Dawn flinched and tried to backtrack. "I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail. I've never actually said to him 'straighten up or you're toast'. More like Kaspar took him aside and pointed out that my wire had been on, suggesting maybe he ought to be on his best behavior. It's up to him whether he read anything more into it."

"You need to be careful," Mac said quietly. "The force frowns on blackmail just as much as it does sexual harassment. He could turn this around on you."

"I know," she shrugged, relieved that he didn't seem interested in pursuing it. Mac was a good cop, and he took the NYPD's code of conduct seriously. "Just between you and me and the wall, I don't plan for it to go anywhere, never have. I don't even have a copy of the tape. Hard to get me on blackmail if I don't have the alleged blackmail material. Truthfully, if it hadn't been for Kaspar hearing what happened over the line, I would have just ignored the situation all together."

"You don't?" Stella looked shocked. "Dawn, if he was threatening you-"

"He was being an ass, saying some things that are very much contrary to the force's anti-sexual harassment policy, and made an attempt at groping me. I've dealt with worse and will probably deal with worse in the future. I reminded him I was a cop who had scored higher in hand-to-hand than he had, and he might want to think again before he put his hand there. Then, because I was on duty at the time, I went back to work and finished the case. Like everything else we gathered on that case, all of the tapes were duly processed and entered into evidence. The way they should be."

"It's in evidence lock-up."

"Yup."

"Does he know it's in lock-up? And what case it was?"

"Pretty sure he does. Kaspar probably mentioned the case to him when they had their little talk." Dawn rolled her eyes. She could take care of herself, thank you very much. She'd given Kaspar a piece of her mind after hearing about that, pointing out that that particular encounter with Vicaro had been relatively tame compared to some of the other things she'd had to put up with.

"Dawn, if he knows where it is, he could try to remove it."

"Yeah, but which would be worse for his career: a tape recording of him sexually harassing a colleague, or evidence that he destroyed evidence?"

"Either one would get him fired."

"Something I think he's figured out. He mostly keeps his mouth shut around me, makes the occasional smart remark about Moran needing a new partner, but otherwise gives me a wide berth."

"Just be careful," Stella warned. "You don't want to get in over your head."

"Stell, it's _Vicaro_." Dawn rolled her eyes. "I doubt it'd be possible to get it over my head when it comes to him."

::

According to Maxine Rowe, Kelli's sister, the group of friends had finished their night at Porter's in Midtown. She found a place in the parking garage of a hotel next door, weaving her way through a throng of suits on the sidewalk to reach the door. But it was pleasantly quiet inside, the evening rush well in the future. A young woman, maybe Dawn's age or a few years younger, looked up from where she was organizing bottles behind the bar.

"Be with you in a sec," she called out, making a note on a pad before walking over. "What can I get you?"

"Nothing to drink," Dawn said, holding up her shield and introducing herself. "But I do have a few questions about last night."

"Sure." The bartender, who said her name was Nicole, gave the picture of Kelli Rowe a long look. "Yeah, I remember her. Your typical broken-hearted type out trying to drink to forget. According to one of her girlfriends, she caught her boyfriend sleeping around on her."

"Did you see who she left with?"

"No, we were too busy. I know there was a guy chatting her up for most of the night. That's the biggest reason I remember her, because of him. He crashed and burned pretty spectacularly just before she showed up."

"Crashed and burned?"

"Yeah, he was hitting on another woman. He had a definite type, you know. Like her - and you." The other woman gave Dawn a speculative look as she spoke. "Tall brunettes. Anyway, he was telling her about how he was here in town for business with some sob story about how his luggage got lost and corporate messed up his hotel reservations, so he was waiting for a secretary to call him back with where he was supposed to stay. But he was still all over her and wanting to go home with her. She put the kibosh on that pretty quick and left. That one showed up with her friends, and he zeroed in on her."

"Did you get his name?"

"No, I couldn't hear what he said to her, and he paid in cash. Why?"

Dawn picked up the picture of Kelli. "She's dead."

"What?" Nicole's eyes widened as the connection dawned on her, glancing at the TV in the corner by the bar. "You mean he's that serial killer that's in the news? You think he killed her?"

"We just want to speak with the people who were with her before her death, try to find out what her movements were before she died. Can you give me a description of him?"

"Your height, brown hair, wore a suit and had a briefcase. Um, I couldn't tell his eye color; it was too dark in here."

"Do you think you could sit down with a sketch artist?"

"I could try." She shrugged at Dawn. "I'm not certain if I remember him all that clearly, but I'd be happy to try to help."

"Good." Dawn made arrangements for her to stop by the precinct for the sketch when she got off her shift. That completed, she thanked her, standing to leave.

"Hey, detective." Dawn turned back to the bartender, who gave her a shy smile. "Come back by when you catch this guy. Drink's on me."

"Thanks," she said, her cheeks heating up as she walked out the door.

The street had emptied significantly while she was inside, almost completely clear except for a man rushing past speaking into his cell phone. "It's going to have to wait, I'm late for my next round table session-" He glared at Dawn when she didn't jump out of his way quickly enough, nodding and stepping aside when she put her hand on her hip, pushing her jacket back to reveal the shield clipped to her belt.

She shook her head as he continued on his way, a sign across the street catching her eye. It was a banner draped above the entrance of a restaurant she'd tried and rather liked, welcoming the "American Association of Sales Conference" to the city. Dawn looked at the sign carefully, trying to remember why it seemed so familiar. It hit her quickly, and she spun around to duck back into Porter's.

Nicole looked up, grinning. "Catch him already?"

"Unfortunately no. Did you hear him say what kind of business he was in town for?"

"I think he said he was a salesman. I'm not certain, though. All the customers tend to run together after a while."

"Thanks." Dawn gave her a grin of her own, feeling the pressure lift a bit as she returned to her car. It didn't take long to swing past first Touch and then Spotlight, where she parked and took a quick stroll into the lobby of the hotel next door. She exited a few minutes later, carrying a handful of papers and dialing her cell phone as she walked.

Stella answered quickly. "Bonasera."

"What do you know about the Association of American Sales Conference?" Dawn asked, studying the sign on the hotel she'd stopped in at.

"The what?"

"Association of American Sales Conference. It's an annual business conference that takes place in Midtown. There are usually about fifteen thousand attendees spread out among eight different hotels, including the Bedford, The Roosevelt, and the Millennium."

"The Bedford, The Roosevelt, and the Millennium," Stella repeated. "Those are all hotels near where our victims were last seen."

"Uh-huh. And according to the schedule, there are meetings going on in each of the eight hotels."

"Which means that if he is a part of the conference, he would have likely been to those hotels, even if he wasn't staying in one or any of them."

"Yeah. But it also means he really may only be here on business. One of fifteen thousand people." Dawn could hear the frustration creeping into her voice as the break began to look less and less like a break, and more and more like a complication. "The conference lasts until Monday. We may only have until then to find him, and then he'll be gone for good."

"We'll find him by then," Stella replied confidently. "Better fifteen thousand than eight million," she reminded Dawn, "and that fifteen thousand is going to include women as well as men who don't match the physical description."

"So just more like five thousand." Dawn smiled into her phone, wishing she felt as confident. "I've gotten some information about the conference from one of the hotels and plan to track down the people running the thing next - after I call and update Gerrard. Maybe we'll get lucky and find out they had all of their attendees submit physical descriptions in with their registrations."


	11. Chapter 11

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for reading and reviewing, and sticking with this despite the delay in this chapter! 3  
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::

Stella was in the hallway, on her way to talk with Mac when Dawn came off the elevator, and she paused to let the other detective catch up and join her. "Did you meet with the conference people yesterday?"

"Tried," Dawn answered, her frustration palpable as they entered Mac's office. "I spoke with a couple people who work for the association, but none of them were involved in the conference itself. The good news is that I have a meeting later this morning with the leads from the planning team."

"Were you able to get any idea of how much they may be able to help with the investigation?" Mac asked, looking up from a folder on his desk.

"From the people I met yesterday?" Dawn shook her head. "They were able to determine for us that none of our victims were members of the association and that none of them had registered for the conference. Which was pretty much as expected, considering none of them work in sales."

"In other words, they might not be able to help much at all," Stella said.

"I don't want to discount them just yet," Dawn amended. "According to the schedule, there were evening activities that took place at the Bedford, Roosevelt, and Millennium, some of which required registration. The bars are all close enough to the respective hotels that it'd be easy for those activities to spill over into them."

"If we can get lists of the people registered for them, we can cross reference to see who has been at all three. Good catch," Mac said.

"Don't congratulate me yet," Dawn said warningly. "This guy has a pattern, and if we don't find him before tonight, there's going to be another body in the morning." _And I'm not certain we have enough information to prevent that_, she thought to herself. "The more information we have going into the meeting, the more likely it is we can narrow the list down to viable suspects. What do you have?"

"Something interesting," Stella said. "The knife found next to Kelli Rowe's body was the knife that was used to kill her. However, I think it's unlikely that it belonged to her."

"How unlikely?" Dawn asked, frown lines creasing her forehead.

"She had a knife block on her kitchen counter, one of those expensive sets, and every other knife she owned belonged to that set. Unless she had just one knife that was different, it wasn't hers," explained Stella, passing pictures of the knife block and the murder weapon to Dawn to look at.

"But," Mac continued for her, "there was a knife missing from the knife block."

"So it could have been that second scenario," Dawn mused out loud as she flipped through the photos, noticing the discrepancies that the CSIs had pointed out. "Maybe a replacement for a knife that was lost or broke?"

"It's an expensive set," Stella said in an unconvinced tone, giving her head a quick shake. "I checked, and they have a ten year replacement policy on their knives and that particular set was introduced three years ago. If the knife was damaged, they would have replaced it for her. Maybe if she lost it, she bought something new from a different brand, but I'd expect that most people with a set like that would want to replace it with the exact same knife."

"I'll check with her sister to see if she knows anything about the knife set," Dawn offered, making a note of it on her pad.

"Did you make any progress with her and the E-FIT?"

Dawn rolled her eyes, handing over the horribly vague sketch that the sister had put together with a sketch artist. "We have a sketch, but it might as well be useless."

"It might be vague," he said as he looked over it, "but it might trigger someone's memory."

"Mac," she complained, "it could be half the men in Manhattan! It could be my brother."

"Is it your brother?"

Dawn took the E-FIT as he handed it back to her, saying, "No."

"Jane finished the DNA extraction and ran it against CODIS," Mac said, changing the subject and handing over the folder he had been looking through to Dawn. "As we suspected, there wasn't a match within the database."

"Meaning that either this is his first offense, or he hasn't been caught before."

"He is careful enough and doing a good enough job cleaning up after himself that I'd put money on it being the latter," Stella pointed out.

"He had to start somewhere," Mac said, leaning back in his chair. "Not all states require that all convicted offenders be profiled in CODIS."

"So it is possible that he has a criminal record, but not a DNA record," Dawn suggested, trying to remember everything they had been taught about the database when she was in the Academy. Unfortunately she was mostly drawing a blank. "What kind of crimes would get you into CODIS? Wasn't it just for sex offenders at first?"

"Yes. Originally it was a database of DNA collected from sex offenders," Mac said with a nod. "But now all fifty states require collection if you've been convicted of murder. Some states take it further, requiring DNA from all convicted felons, but not all states do."

"When I get that list of names, I'll check to see if any of them have records," Dawn said as she stood. "I'll let you know what I find out."

::

The Association of American Sales headquarters was on Broadway, in the heart of Midtown, taking up two floors of the Greenwich Building. Just during the walk from her car into the building, Dawn picked out at least three women who could be potential targets and a half-dozen men who fit the vague description they had of their killer. She rode the elevator - shared with seven other people, including potential target number three and one potential murderer, to the 8th floor - where she found herself in a nondescript lobby presided over by an efficient-looking secretary. She introduced herself and was quickly led to a suit-filled conference room down a side hallway.

"Detective." A middle-aged man stepped forward and extended his hand. "I'm James Casale, director of the Association of American Sales. With us today are some members of our board of directors." He waved to one side of the room. "As well, our team of conference planners are here," he added, motioning to the other side of the room. "We here at the AAS, of course, pledge to do everything we can to assist in your investigation."

"Do you really think someone affiliated with the conference has been murdering those women?" a nervous man asked, rubbing the back of his head and ruffling his dark hair. He flushed when everyone turned to look at him, ducking his head.

"The timing matches up with the conference, and all of the women were last seen at locations that correspond with conference locations," Dawn explained. "While it isn't definitive, it is something we need to investigate, Mr.-"

"Charles Gagnon," he said, straightening up and holding out his hand. "I, um, am the Assistant Director for Conference Planning with the Association of American Sales."

"He's my assistant," said a brunette woman in her early thirties who stepped forward to join them. She was tall and had penetrating blue eyes, increasing Dawn's mental count to four as she introduced herself. "Gloria Durand, Director of Conference Planning. Everything related to the conference crosses at least one, if not both, of our desks. The rest of our team is with us," she continued, turning and waving them forward one by one. "Jodie Elliot, Jake Groves, Darren Crewe, and Manny Rana. And of course there are hundreds of volunteers and members of the AAS's various subdivisions that assist with the planning, as well, especially in regards to the events that their groups are hosting. But we'll be happy to answer as many of your questions as possible."

"Thank you. I'll need contact information for your volunteers, particularly if they were involved in planning events that took place Thursday night, Saturday night, and Monday night," Dawn said as she shook each of their hands.

"Of course," Ms. Durand said, gesturing to her assistant. "Charlie can prepare a list for you. He works more closely with them than I do, as our liaison to the AAS's subdivisions."

He nodded as she spoke, pulling a set of papers from a file folder he was carrying. "I had a feeling you would be wanting that information, so I took the liberty of compiling it before coming here. Each night of the conference has several divisions that hold cocktail hours, business meetings, or other events. Since there are specific nights you are interested in, I can help you connect with those organizers and liaisons first. Why don't we-"

"Why don't you two stay and use the conference room while you go over this stuff, Charlie," Ms. Durand interrupted, her voice saccharine. "You don't need anything from the rest of us, do you, Detective?"

"I may need to speak with each of you later, but this will work for now."

"Thank you, and feel free to ask us - or Charlie, he's the one who keeps everything running around here - if you need anything else."

"You said Thursday, Saturday, and Monday?" Gagnon asked after everyone filed out.

"How about tonight, too? Are there events planned for this evening?" Dawn asked.

He looked taken aback, but quickly recovered and checked his itinerary. "Tonight our North Atlantic Subdivision is holding a meet and greet at the Marriott, the LGBT Round Table will be at the Sheraton, the Pacific Subdivision will have a general informational meeting at the Millennium, and the Southwest Subdivision will be holding a poster session at the Roosevelt."

"Did any of those groups have events on the other nights in question?" She peered at the list, her boots giving her enough additional height to easily see over his shoulder. Dawn scanned the list with him, looking for any matches.

"It looks like the North Atlantic Subdivision had its business meeting on Thursday night at the Bedford, as did the Midwest Subdivision at the Marriot, and the Pacific Subdivision at the Millennium. The Food Sales Round Table held a meet and greet at the Roosevelt, and the Automotive Round Table had a cocktail hour at the Sheraton." He flipped to another page, sliding his finger down the column of information until he found the next list. It seemed to take him far longer to find Saturday on the list than she, and she resisted the urge to reach over his shoulder and take the list from him.

"Oh, here it is. Saturday night had the Pacific Subdivision's meet and greet at the W New York the Southwest Subdivision held their business meeting at Millennium, while there was a joint poster session held by the North and South Atlantic Subdivisions at the Roosevelt, the New Salespersons Round Table hosted a dinner and speaker at the Sheraton, and the Women in Sales Round Table held their dinner at the Marriott.

"Finally," he said, turning the page again to Monday's schedule, "it appears that the Salespersons of Color Round Table had dinner at the Sheraton, the South Atlantic Subdivision had their business meeting at the Millennium, the Midwest Subdivision meet and greet was at the Roosevelt, the Big Box Round Table dinner was at the Marriott, and the dinner honoring Kris Hudson's thirty-year contribution to the association was held at The W New York on Monday."

"Did these events require reservations or registrations?"

"Some of them, such as the dinner for Kris Hudson, but mostly they didn't. You can, however, get a fairly good idea of who could have been there based on the group hosting the event. It's highly unlikely that someone from the Southwest subdivision is going to attend the North Atlantic Subdivision's business meeting. Members of the Women in Sales Round Table are most likely going to be the participants of their dinner. It isn't exclusive; participants of the AAS meetings are welcome to attend any open session or business meeting. Closed sessions, obviously, are a different matter, but most of those happen over lunch, between the presentation sessions."

"Do you have membership listings for these subdivisions and round tables that I can get?" Dawn asked, accepting the papers when he handed them to her.

"A portion of our members' dues go towards their membership in one subdivision and one round table each; any others must be paid for in addition - usually when they renew their membership. It should be a part of each member's records as a result. I can pull up a list for you, though it may take me a bit to collect them all."

"Please do, it'll be valuable to our investigation."

"Just give me a minute." He ducked out of the conference room. It was five minutes before he returned, carrying two cups of coffee and a sheaf of fan-fold papers under his arm. "I brought you some coffee. Cream or sugar?"

"Sugar please," she said as he handed a cup over.

"These are our copies of the membership lists," he explained as he handed the papers over.

"You don't have any electronic copies?" she asked, a little incredulous. Those would be far easier to go through - she knew that the lab could just enter them into the computer or something like that.

"Well..." he fidgeted nervously. "Technically we have it on the computer. But the last time I touched Raquel's computer - she's the only one who has those lists for liability reasons, because they do contain personal data - something happened, and it, um, broke. I believe her exact words were something along the lines of severe physical harm if anyone other than her ever touched the computer again. And, truthfully, I wouldn't know the first thing about actually finding these on there, anyway; I think they're password protected. I've left a note asking her to pull the lists together for you, but it probably won't be available until tomorrow."

She rubbed the back of her neck, uncertain if it was the tension from the case or something else that was bothering her. Something didn't sit right. "Well, thanks. I'll come by tomorrow and get it."

"Or I could messenger it to you," he offered, his voice creeping higher in pitch as he spoke. "No need for you to come all the way back here just for that."

"No thanks," she said. "While these paper lists are good, the electronic copy will be easier for us to go through. The sooner we get them the better."

"Oh, of course, I didn't think. I also brought out some copies of our itinerary for the conference, and all of the information from the packet we gave our guests. Everything you need to know about New York - or at least our little corner of Midtown."

"Um, thank you." Dawn wasn't quite certain what to do with that. She already had a copy of the itinerary that she had picked up the day before.

"I thought that it'd be useful, in case this person you're looking for really is from out of town. Letting you know what it is likely that he knows. Plus it includes a list of all of the places where we're holding events."

"I'm sure it'll be useful."

"Uh-huh." He didn't quite look convinced, but he moved on. "You said you're trying to identify this person?"

Dawn pulled out the E-FIT, as vague as it was, and showed it to him. "We believe that we're looking for this man."

"Oh, um..." he poked at it a bit with his finger. "That could be anybody. I'm sorry I can't help there. Is there anything else you need?"

"You said that some of the events required reservations; do you have those lists available? I'll need them, too."

He blinked a few times before standing again. "I'll need to check on those."

Dawn frowned as she watched him leave. He- he reminded her of the salesman when she bought her first car: eager to please (or at least make you think that you were pleased) without necessarily helping you with what you were looking for. If it hadn't been for Dad, she would have walked off the lot with a hideous, beat-up lemon that she would have hated. He'd insisted she learn from that: always keep in mind what it is you're looking for, not what other people say you want. Gagnon was great at producing what he thought she needed, but that didn't mean he was right.

"It's going to take a little bit to pull those reservation lists together," he said as he returned, "but I thought that maybe you'd like to see some of the venues while you wait?"

"Will the membership lists be ready when we're finished?"

"I'm afraid not," he said, shaking his head. "Timothy has the reservation lists, not Raquel, and he's in right now, so he's working on printing up a copy."

"Electronic would be more helpful."

"And that, too. Shall we start at the Roosevelt since it's just down the street? We can go to the Bedford after that. It'll give you a chance to see some of the sessions and take a look around. Who knows, maybe we'll see him." He gestured at the E-FIT as he spoke.

"That'd be great," she said, refusing to let him annoy her. If she had to wait for the lists, she had to wait. She'd get them eventually, even if she had to get a court order.

::

_He sat at the table with his--not colleagues; no, he hadn't ever worked with them, but with some of the people he had met at the meetings. His briefcase rested against his leg as they chatted, calling to him like a siren's song. But he had to resist. He couldn't do what he wanted. No, not tonight._

_Oh, he knew all about that policewoman nosing around the conference. He knew she'd figured something out if he did anything now._

_He could wait. He knew he could. He was stronger than her._

_She could be one of them. Easily. She had the right look. But she wasn't quite what he wanted. Maybe if she had a sister..._

_Not that it mattered. He wasn't looking for anyone tonight. He was in control. Not this need. He could fight it._

_A figure passing their table caught his eye. She was tall, with brown hair, and, when she glanced back and gave him an encouraging grin, had brilliant blue eyes. Just like _her_._

_No. Not tonight._

_He shook his head, giving her an apologetic grin as he tipped his head to his tablemates._

_No. He was staying in tonight._


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note:** Written for the Genderbender Big Bang Challenge, featuring girl!Flack instead of the usual Don Flack. Thanks to E for the beta job and comma wrangling. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing and putting up with late chapters.

::

Dawn looked up from her paperwork when the chair next to her desk moved, Stella greeting her as she sat down. "There wasn't a body this morning," she continued softly.

"I know," Dawn said. "Trust me, I've checked. He seems to be on a schedule, so where is last night's victim? Not that I mind there being one less dead woman out there, but-"

"We, unfortunately, don't have enough evidence to stop this guy without another body," Stella finished for her. "If there's something I hate about this job, it's that sometimes you have to wait for a second crime to solve the first."

"Or, in this case, the fourth to solve the first three," Dawn said morosely.

"But you made the connection between those three, Dawn." Stella leaned forward, lowering her voice as she continued, "and that connection is what's keeping Sinclair off your back. Trust me, he's been pushing both Gerrard and Mac to have the case reassigned. You figured out what three women who seemingly had nothing in common had in common. That has been a huge break."

"I just wish it felt more like a break," Dawn muttered. "At this point we can't even narrow it down to possibly a member of one subdivision. Of the three locations in question, they weren't all in use by the same group."

"But it was just two groups between them, correct?"

"The North Atlantic and South Atlantic each had their business meetings match up, and the joint meeting between the two also matched the locations."

"It is likely that someone could be interested in or a member of both. Especially if they were from the Mid-Atlantic region - unless that was a separate subdivision?"

"No Mid-Atlantic Subdivision as far as I can tell," Dawn said as she flipped to the listing at the back, "but I got the membership lists yesterday." She gestured to a large stack of fan fold paper at the edge of her desk. "No electronic copy yet, though he said yesterday that he'd have it to me by morning. They just happened to have these already printed off; if Gagnon hadn't thought of them we wouldn't even have this much."

"You're not planning to go through those by hand, are you?" Stella asked.

"Actually, I'm hoping the electronic copy arrives soon and your computer people can go through it. Otherwise I'll be camping out in the lab drafting people as they walk by to help with this." Dawn winked at her as she joked. "I flipped through it a bit when it arrived, and there are too many names on this to make any headway on my own. I have another meeting with Gagnon later today; I'll try to get the electronic copies then." She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

"You don't seem too excited about that."

"You know, he's a salesman." She shrugged as she groped for the words to explain what she meant. "You know how used car salesmen seem to trigger that, oh, I don't know-"

"'Spidey sense'?" Stella offered.

Dawn snorted. "Something like that. How they just bug you? It's like that with him."

"You don't think he's a potential suspect, do you?"

"Nah." Dawn shook her head, dismissing that thought. "According to his boss, the conference couldn't go on without him. She gave me a list of all the things he was responsible for. He was too busy with his job duties to be our guy."

"Then we're looking at someone in one or both of those subdivisions. Good luck with that list."

"I'm thrilled, I'm sure you can tell," Dawn joked sarcastically before sighing and pushing the papers she had been dealing with out of the way. "The other pro about there not being another body is that I can get some of this paperwork out of the way. Sinclair may be backing off, but I still have Gerrard breathing down my neck. And if he stepped up to bat for me, then he's going to expect progress, which means I'm going to need to have a good, plausible reason that our guy broke his pattern."

"My guess is that he's probably scared," Stella offered. "Think about it: his perfect crime spree isn't so perfect any longer. We have DNA evidence from him. From hereon out, he either needs to rein in his impulse to kill, or find some way to ensure that he doesn't leave any evidence behind again."

"Not to mention finding a way to avoid the investigation and any potential court orders for DNA swabs that might come if he catches our attention."

"Right. He's likely regrouping," Stella said, shaking her head. "I don't think he's finished killing. I don't think he'll be finished killing until we catch him."

"So once he starts feeling comfortable again, or just starts feeling the urge again, he's going to attack another woman." Dawn pushed her hair back from her face with a contemplative look. "That could be tomorrow or next week."

"If it is next week and he is here with the conference, then his next kill might be somewhere else. We could lose him if he moves to kill elsewhere but doesn't leave any DNA to link the cases."

"We have until Monday. That's when the conference is over and he'll be going home."

::

Gagnon was waiting for her in the AAS lobby when Dawn arrived, quickly showing her into the conference room where they had worked the day before. He started by handing her a CD.

"I was finally able to get the master membership lists for the North and South Atlantic subdivisions."

"Thank you," she said, slipping the disc into one of her suit's pockets as she took a seat across the table from him. She stifled the urge to rub her hand down her pants leg after brushing against his sweaty skin.

"I also did some more checking on tonight's schedule," he said eagerly. He set his briefcase between them, opening it just enough to pull a stack of file folders out. "The meet and greet tonight does require reservations, though that was really just to get a head count for the food and drinks that will be provided. But I have a list - paper only, I'm afraid - of the people who RSVPed for it. Obviously there'll be some who don't show, and, of course," he said, waving his hands about, "there will be people who show up without reservations as well."

"This is at The W, correct?"

"Yes, oh-" He pulled out his briefcase again. "-I almost forgot." He produced a different folder, one like those she'd seen people at the conference carrying when they had gone around to the different hotels the day before. "I figured that since you're a detective, you'll want to detect things."

"It's a conference packet," she said as she took it and looked inside. There was a name badge like other conference goers wore, with her name on it stating that she was an employee of Maxway Department Store.

"I was going to make you an AAS employee, but then I realized people might not talk so openly around you if they thought you were reporting back to the conference team. So I went with a member of Maxway's marketing team. Since they're based out of Baltimore, I also added you to the North Atlantic Subdivision's membership list."

"So I can go to the meet and greet tonight." She was actually rather impressed. "Thank you."

"I nearly put you with Macy's, based here in New York, but figured maybe you'd want to be somewhere that it looked like you actually travelled here. Not that some of our members in the city don't end up staying in our hotels, as well - I mean, I live out on Staten Island, but it's just easier to get a room at the Marriott for the conference and not deal with the extra travel time. Especially because some of the nights get so late."

"No, this was good thinking." She flipped through the packet, recognizing most of it from the stuff he'd given her the day before. He watched her closely as she looked through it, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled from his attention. "If our murderer is there tonight, I might be able to get some information about him."

"Do you really think he'll be there?"

"It would make sense. Even if he isn't selecting victims from the conference attendees, the places where he's finding them are always nearby events held by one of these two groups. He's going to the meeting and then going to a nearby bar when it is finished."

"So that's how he's doing it!" Gagnon said quickly. He flushed when she turned and looked at him with a frown. "You have no idea how exciting this is. I watch all those cop shows and am an avid mystery reader. It's so interesting being a part of a murder mystery myself and helping you out. Figuring out whodunit and all of that."

"But this isn't fiction," she reminded him softly, disgusted by his delight in being a part of the case. Some things about people she never understood. "Three women have already died. And more will die if we can't find and stop him. He's a serial killer, he can't stop on his own."

"But he hasn't killed anyone else yet. Doesn't that mean he can? Stop, that is?" he said defensively, flushing darkly. "Because you said three, not four, and the news didn't say anything about another death."

"He may try to stop, but I don't think he can. There'll be another death soon, unless we find him before then." Dawn shook her head. "If we don't stop him before he leaves New York, then he'll just continue killing when he returns home."

"Oh. Well I hope that going to the meet and greet tonight will help."

"So do I."

::

The precinct was fairly quiet when she returned. Marks nodded to her as she entered, tipping his head towards the back offices. She didn't need anything else, understanding that Gerrard wanted another update from her.

Gerrard waved her in when she knocked, motioning for her to take a seat across from him. He was straight to the point when he began speaking. "Have you made any more headway on the case?"

"We're currently going through the membership rosters of two groups that had events taking place near the bars where our women were last seen. The Association of American Sales is working with us to help identify people who may be able to assist with the case."

"How solid is this connection to the conference?"

Dawn paused. It wasn't like she hadn't had a few doubts over the connection herself, but they didn't have anything else to go on. "It's too much to be a coincidence, sir. Having conference events taking place at the hotel next to one or even two of the bars is one thing. Even if the events at hotels next to the bars were sponsored by different groups, it'd still be a stretch. But all of the linked events were sponsored by one of two subdivisions that are connected geographically. Too much is falling into place for it to not be someone involved in the conference or one, if not both, of those subdivisions."

"And this conference ends on Monday."

"We'll find him by then."

"There wasn't another murder last night," he pointed out, reminding her that they didn't have much to go on to find their murderer.

"We think he was spooked. The last time he raped and killed his victim, he left DNA behind. For someone who has been meticulous about cleaning up after himself, that had to have been a huge setback."

"Add in the fact that you've shown up at the conference asking questions and you may have a murderer who has decided to wait until he goes home to kill again."

"Monday is four days from now, sir." She leaned forward, speaking in earnest. "That means he would be going nearly a week between murders when he'd only been going forty-eight hours before now. He's a serial killer, they usually speed up; not slow down. I'm not certain he can wait that long. I'm not certain he could last until the weekend."

"Are either of those subdivisions meeting tonight?" He asked the obvious question, which she already had an answer to.

"They're holding a joint meet and greet at The W," she said. "I've already made arrangements to be there myself. Gagnon has set me up with a conference packet and badge. It'll look like I'm just another member of the North Atlantic Subdivision attending the meet and greet."

"Going undercover then?" He gave her a reproving look: this was the first she'd mentioned her plan to anyone, having only made it before coming in.

"It has been a bit of a last-minute plan, sir," she said, wincing. "I was going to call and tell you about it, but since I was coming back to the precinct I thought it'd be best to tell you in person."

"I want you to take someone with you, Flack."

"Sir, I don't need a babysitter-"

"Do I need to remind you that you fit our victims' profiles?" Gerrard pointed out harshly. "Call your contact and make arrangements for someone else to go with you as backup. I don't want to find out in the morning that one of my promising new detectives got in over her head with something she thought she could handle on her own and ended up the next victim instead."

"I'll speak with Detective Bonasera about going with me."

Gerrard frowned. He wasn't old school enough to completely hold the crime lab in disdain, unlike some other brass she knew of, but he didn't exactly hold them in high regard, either. He grudgingly appreciated the jobs they did, but that was about it, considering that half the department knew what he really thought of Mac.

"I'd prefer you take Vicaro."

"Sir, if we're discussing the possibility of our murderer approaching me, he most certainly won't if I have Vicaro or any other man with me. Every woman he approached has either been alone or with a group of mostly female friends. If it is just me and a man, he'll assume that I am with that man and not approachable. He'll target someone else."

"Then take Maka. Take one of _our_ people. I want you to have someone who'll watch your back."

She nodded, not bothering to point out that she completely trusted Stella to watch her back. It was beside the point and would only lead to an argument with someone who could pull this case from her if he wanted. She trusted Maka to watch her back, too. Dawn continued with her report, changing the subject back to the case.

"I've followed up on the knife, and while she is can't be certain, the sister doesn't believe that Kelli Rowe had any other brand of knives that she used."

"This is the knife that doesn't match the set? But it is a fairly common brand?"

"Yes," she said, nodding, "although Detective Bonasera did some follow-up on the knife itself. The company only started making santoku-style chefs knives a year-and-a-half ago, with the initial test taking place in the northeast. They've expanded sales through the rest of the country in the past six months. If the knife belonged to our murderer instead of our victim, then it holds up the theory that he's a member of the North Atlantic subdivision of the AAS."

"Unless he bought it in the last six months."

"The CSIs believe the blade has too much wear to only be a few months old."

Gerrard rolled his eyes but didn't comment on that, instead saying, "You're running out of time, Flack. I know that you've had a lot thrown at you in this case with very little to go on. There are seasoned detectives I wouldn't wish this case on, much less as any rookie's first case--" He held up his hand when she started to protest, continuing on. "You made a connection that no one else noticed. That's bought you time, but I need results."

"You'll get them."

"You make sure of that. Sinclair wants this case reassigned. I've managed to convince him it'd be detrimental to take the detective who has been working it from the start off the case. But he's still pushing."

"How soon should I expect to have a partner assigned on this?" Dawn asked, mentally steeling herself for bad news.

"Do you need a partner?"

"I need more evidence."

He looked at her closely, his expression unreadable, before he nodded. "Don't make me regret this, Flack."


	13. Chapter 13

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for reading and reviewing! 3!!  
**  
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::

Kaile Maka gave the ballroom at The W an impressed look when they entered. "You know, I might have to start giving salesmen a second look if they all clean up this well."

"Just wait to give them that second look tomorrow," Dawn suggested as she scanned the room.

Each of the subdivisions had nearly two thousand members, though it was obvious not all were here tonight. There were still a good several hundred people mingling around the room, and more coming in behind them. The room was predominantly filled with men, at least a quarter of which could match their killer's description. It was literally like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

A grinning man in a suit, his blond hair slicked back, approached them where they stood. "Hello," he said, shaking their hands. "I'm Evan Vives, the membership director for the North Atlantic Subdivision. Welcome to our little get-together."

"Little?" Maka asked, glancing around the room again.

He grinned again, shrugging a little. "I'm happy to say that of all of the geographic subdivisions, the North Atlantic had the highest percentage of members registered for this year's conference, closely followed by the South Atlantic subdivision." He checked their badges quickly. "And I see you're both new members of the North Atlantic subdivision. It's great to have you here at the conference for the first time. I'm sure you'll be able to make some great networking contacts while you're here."

"Thank you," Maka said. She motioned to the room. "Are we just supposed to mingle?"

"Of course - introduce yourself to your colleagues and take advantage of the free buffet and wet bar. We have something for everyone here."

Dawn nodded as he moved on to the next set of newcomers, turning to Maka. "So, split up, circle the room and meet up again?"

"At the buffet table, please," Maka said, glancing at it hungrily. "This was last-minute enough that I didn't get any dinner. And you said you'd make it worth my while."

"Never let it be said I don't treat my dates to good food," Dawn teased, chuckling as Maka rolled her eyes. "See you at the buffet table."

She headed left while Maka headed right, stopping at different groups of attendees to introduce herself and chat for a while. No one jumped out as a potential suspect as they spoke, but she kept her ears open. What she was really looking for was the places people were planning to go after this. All it really took was flashing the occasional interested look at the different men, and a couple of the women, she met, and she quickly collected a list of places where people were heading.

Making her way between the suited figures, she rejoined Maka at the buffet, placing a few hors d'oeuvres on a cocktail plate while her colleague discussed carpet sales with a man who gave them both approving looks. Dawn recognized the pleading look Maka threw her, placing a hand on her colleague's arm as she said sweetly, "I hope you don't mind if I steal Kaile away." She didn't give him much choice, pulling Maka away as she moved deeper into the crowd.

"Thank you," Maka said, popping a stuffed mushroom into her mouth. "I've been reminded of why I avoid salesmen. I don't care how well they clean up."

"I'm sure not all of them are that bad," Dawn said to her. "Did you get anything?"

"Just a lot of invitations to Remy's later tonight. And a few other places, but that seems to be where most people are planning to go."

"That's what I've been getting as well. What do you think?"

"It's a catch-22. On one hand, if he's trying to blend in with the convention, then he's going to go with the crowd to Remy's. On the other hand, if he's trying to hide the fact that he's picking up women from people he's here with, he's going to go somewhere else."

"I don't know about the hiding part," Dawn mused, thinking to a conversation she'd had earlier that evening. "Apparently these people have things called conference wives and conference husbands? People they hook up with every year at this conference, regardless of their marital or dating status back home. It seems to be quite regular for everyone to be sleeping with everyone else. I don't think anyone would notice if one of their colleagues picked someone up for the night."

"Just when you thought you've heard of everything," Maka muttered. "They really call them conference wives?"

"One guy actually introduced the woman he was with as his 'conference wife'. Granted, he seemed to be joking around as much as anything, and she didn't look too thrilled by it, but _still_--" Dawn didn't continue, just shaking her head at the thought.

"If any boyfriend of mine ever introduced me like that-" Maka left the threat hanging, though it was easy for Dawn to finish it for her.

"He wouldn't be my boyfriend for long."

Maka nodded, scanning the crowd as she ate another stuffed mushroom. "So, Remy's?"

"Yeah," Dawn said as she looked around the room. Across the crowd, she could see Gagnon at the entrance, standing near the door and looking around. She quickly turned away, back to Maka. "Let's hit Remy's."

Her colleague craned her neck, trying to see over the crowd. "Friend of yours?" Maka asked when she caught a glimpse of Gagnon.

"Assistant Director of Conference Planning for the AAS," Dawn explained at they found the back entrance. "Which, when you get past the title, is just a fancy name for glorified secretary."

"There's nothing wrong with secretaries," Maka chided. "They're the ones who get everything done."

"I know. He's just...he's been volunteered to assist me with the investigation. While he has been very helpful - we wouldn't be here now without him - there's something about him that just... gets on my nerves, I guess."

Maka began to chuckle next to her as the door closed behind them, covering her mouth when Dawn turned and frowned at her. "Translation: you, Miss "I'm an independent woman, I can do it myself" are being forced to have someone outside the department help you on your case."

"No, that's not-" Dawn paused and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at Maka. "That can't be it. Is it?"

"Flack, you are one of the most stubborn, determined-to-prove-yourself cops in the precinct, which is part of what makes you a good cop. And I get why; trust me. If my dad was a legend in the NYPD..." Maka shook her head. "I would have joined the force in Jersey City, but that's beside the point. But it also means you have a blind spot as to when to ask for help."

"No, I don't," Dawn denied.

"Would you have asked me to come along if Gerrard hadn't forced you?"

"Well, no, but-"

"I rest my case."

"I ask for help all the time. Just ask Mac and Stella."

"Help from the crime lab. You've also made it pretty clear that science was never your strong subject and that you're more than willing to go to someone you deem an expert in that area. You've got things right there, but you pretty much just limit it to the lab." Maka sighed. "Dawn, if Gerrard hadn't insisted you take someone and you were here alone, what would you have done?"

"Exactly what we're doing now," she said defensively. "Mingled with the people inside, tried to figure out where they were all going after this, and then gone to Remy's. Just like we are."

"And if, when you were at Remy's, you thought you found the guy?"

"Um..." She floundered a bit, waving her hands as she thought. "I would have tried to stop him. Or make myself the potential target instead of some other woman. I'm a cop. I was at the top of my class in self defense--"

"And apparently at the bottom in common sense. Jesus, Dawn. Do that, and tomorrow morning Gerrard would be explaining to your father that you made a _stupid_, rookie mistake and got yourself killed."

"He's already pointed that out to me," Dawn mumbled sheepishly, her face flushing. "Trust me, I know better than to take him back to my place. I would have come up with something."

"As well as you're coming up with something now?" Maka asked sarcastically. She sighed, grabbing Dawn by the arm. "C'mon, let's get to Remy's before he tries anything."

"Yeah," Dawn said quietly, thinking hard as she followed along. "Maka?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll get you up to speed on the case in the morning," she said as they reached the entrance to Remy's. "And let Gerrard know I've asked you to help me on it." She flinched as everything came out wrong. "That is, if you don't mind-"

"The Hubert case has pretty much gone cold for now, so unless anything pressing comes up on it, I'm clear."

"Is that a yes or a no?" Dawn asked, wrinkling her nose when she saw the mass of pulsating bodies on the dance floor. The Fire Marshal would have a field day in the place, she thought as they pressed through the crowd. They were never going to figure out if their murderer was here, not to mention if he managed to go home with someone. There were just too many people.

"It's a yes, Flack." Maka pulled Dawn towards her just in time to avoid a server spilling a tray of drinks down them both. "Now let's go dancing."

"Just what I always like to do after a long day of paperwork," Dawn muttered as she followed Maka down to the dance floor, carefully checking out each couple they passed.

"That's the spirit."

They were on the dance floor, not so much dancing as moving about and looking at the other people there, when someone squealed "Dawnie!" and slammed into her. The smell of alcohol was strong enough to make Dawn's eyes sting as she grabbed Maka's arm in an attempt to keep her balance.

"Sam?" Dawn asked incredulously when she finally got a good look at the dark-haired person. "What are you doing here?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Sam said when she pulled away, wavering a bit on her feet. "You should have told me you were going out tonight; we could have met up."

"We have met up," Dawn pointed out wearily, her relief at seeing that her sister was fine - if more than a little drunk - quickly bleeding into exasperation. "Besides, technically I'm working. And you never returned my calls, so it would have been rather difficult."

"'Bout that. Thanks for sending Moran by. I'm officially not talking to you."

While Sam was usually relatively sensible when sober, choice in friends aside, Dawn had yet to understand her drunken logic. "You are talking to me."

"Well, I'm stopping." She turned her back on Dawn, holding her hand out to Maka. "Hi! You Dawn's new girlfriend?"

"Sam," Dawn said warningly, then sighed. "Sam, this is Detective Kaile Maka, a colleague of mine. Kaile, this is my little sister Samantha Flack."

"Oh," Sam said, shaking Maka's hand, the stamp from whatever bar she'd started the night at dark against the back of her hand. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone you work together. You're already a huge step up from the last person Dawn dated. And the chick before him."

"Samantha Erin."

"Oh, come off it, Dawn. You normally have horrible taste; it's a well-known fact," she turned back to Maka who was looking rather amused at the sisters' antics. "Seth, the guy, he was hot, but I swear that's all he had going for him. Dumb as a rock. I'm pretty sure she only kept him around as long as she did for the sex. And Cathy? Threw a hot curling iron at Dawn once. Because Dawn had figured out she was cheating on her. Cathy had no problem with being furious when Dawn got home late after an extended shift, but didn't want Dawn asking where she was when she was out late." Sam rolled her eyes as she talked, clearly unimpressed with her sister's friends.

"Like you're one to talk," Dawn muttered futilely. It had been a long time since she'd dated either of them. It'd been a long time since she'd even been on a date, something she'd recently reminded herself of. She didn't need her romantic failures paraded out for Maka to see.

Sam ignored her, throwing an arm around her shoulder. "Now that you're here, we should go get drinks. The Sex on the Beach shots here are the best."

"Sam, we're working, not on a night out."

"Dawnie," Sam whined.

Dawn cringed. She hated that nickname. "Maybe some other time, _Sammy_. Not tonight."

"Fine, you'd probably bitch at my friends anyways," Sam said. "It was nice to meet you, Kaile. Keep her in line, okay?"

"I'll do my best," Maka answered seriously, though Dawn could tell she was about to laugh. "It was nice to meet you."

Dawn groaned as Sam stumbled off, wiping a hand down her face.

"So that's your sister."

"Hurricane Samantha," Dawn rubbed the back of her neck, trying to fend off the impending headache. "Listen, Maka, about what she said-"

"Your sister is drunk. And gossiping about people I've never met before," Maka said reassuringly. "I don't do gossip. Who you date doesn't matter to me. That's your business. Though it does sound like maybe you need to work on your taste in partners."

"You offer to set me up with someone and I'm taking back what I said earlier." It may have been a while since her last date, but she wasn't that desperate. Having a night out after this case was looking better and better, even if it wasn't a date.

Maka laughed. "Nah, I don't do matchmaking. You're safe from that."

::

_He watched from near the doorway, tracking the two women across the bar. He had known they were going to come here. He'd watched them from the hotel, only following after they'd gone inside. Now they were on the dance floor. Looking for him._

__

She seemed even more right for him than before. But it'd be too obvious, wouldn't it? No. He had to resist. He would find someone else.

From his vantage point he watched as a drunk woman collided with the detective of interest, grabbing onto and hugging her with great enthusiasm before turning and shaking hands with the other detective. A friend perhaps, no - he amended when she turned again and he got a good look at her - family. She had the same eyes.

He watched as they talked before the drunk woman teetered away, stumbling in her heels. She was a possibility...

But only if she left and went elsewhere. He couldn't choose someone from here; it would be too obvious.

He backed further into the corner where he stood, keeping an eye on the drunk woman but occasionally glancing back at the dance floor to the detectives. He almost missed it when she started for the door. Keeping out of sight, he followed.

_Yes. She was definitely a possibility._


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note:** Written for the Genderbender Big Bang Challenge, featuring girl!Flack instead of the usual Don Flack. Thanks to E for the beta job and comma wrangling. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing.

::

Dawn met Maka in the lobby of the apartment building, a secretly relieved that the other detective looked as tired as she did. It hadn't been an early night for either of them and the morning had, unfortunately, come too soon. Though not soon enough for someone else.

"What went wrong?" Maka asked between sips of her coffee.

"I don't know." Dawn sighed as they took the stairs. Their victim had a third floor walk-up apartment, nowhere near where any of the previous victims lived. "But I'm going to have to figure it out before I meet with Gerrard."

"Before _we_ meet with Gerrard. I'm on this one now, too."

A wan smile was Dawn's only response until they reached the third floor. There she paused, putting a hand on Maka's arm. "Just a warning, it's going to be bad."

"I've seen bloody scenes before, Flack," Maka said as they both pulled their gloves on. Then she pushed open the door. "Oh my god."

"That's pretty much what I said at the first scene," Dawn said softly.

"Damn," Maka swore softly as she gingerly stepped around an arc of dried blood to approach the bed. "He stabbed her a lot. Got an artery from the looks of it."

"It's likely on both counts," Hawkes said from the doorway. "I can't confirm it without an autopsy, but he's stabbed his previous victims ten to a dozen times apiece. And he seems to know where to hit to get the aorta."

"Medical experience?" Dawn asked, wondering if they had been approaching it all wrong so far.

"More like high school biology," Maka said. "Don't you remember having to learn where the major veins and arteries were?"

"I remember sleeping through high school biology," Dawn joked lightly, "but that's about it. Oh, and getting a detention for punching Jake Bowman in the nose during lab."

"You punched someone in the nose during biology lab?" Hawkes asked incredulously.

"He snapped my bra while I was using the microscope." She paused, thinking back. "I think I might have broken it. His nose, not the microscope. Pretty sure Dad would have grounded me if I'd broken the microscope. Instead he congratulated me and then said that since I had my left hook down, it was time to start working on my right."

"Your family is strange."

"We're Irish," Dawn said, with a shrug, by way of explanation. "There's a knife by the body again."

"I'll compare it to the knives in her kitchen when we get back to the lab," Stella said as she joined them, a harried look on her face. "Hey, Maka."

"Hey, Stella. Busy morning?"

"More like busy night bleeding into a busy morning."

"Where's Mac?" Dawn asked, glancing at the door behind her.

"He has court later this morning. I sent him home to try to get some rest around two." Stella grimaced. "He only lasted an extra day."

"Yeah, but she wasn't at Remy's last night," Maka said, pointing to the victim's hand. There was a smeared, dark stamp on the back of her hand. Stella frowned as Maka held up both of hers, with no stamps on the back. "Remy's uses an ultraviolet ink for their stamp."

"Remy's?" Stella asked.

"The last three victims were last seen at bars near hotels where either one or both of two subdivisions of the AAS held meetings," Dawn explained.

Stella nodded. "I already got that."

"The North and South Atlantic subdivisions held a joint meet and greet last night at The W, which is next to Remy's," Dawn continued. "Most of the participants went there after it was over."

"But apparently he wasn't in that group. Or if he was, he went elsewhere after that," Maka added. "You know, I've seen this stamp before."

"Where?" Dawn asked, turning back to her.

"Your sister, when we ran into her last night. She had the same stamp on the back of her hand. But she didn't get it at Remy's; she got it before she arrived."

Dawn paled slightly, her eyes widening before she pinched the bridge of her nose, silently counting to ten. "I'll talk to her and find out where else she was last night."

"You sure? I could-"

"I am perfectly capable of asking my sister," Dawn interrupted hotly, knowing that she was failing to hide her irritation. She then tried to turn it into a joke. "Besides, what kind of big sister would I be if I didn't take advantage of having a good reason to pull my drunk and hungover little sister out of bed at-" She glanced at her watch. "-seven in the morning?"

"A much nicer one?" Maka offered.

"Eh. She avoided my calls for almost a week. She deserves it. And if it helps solve this case, I don't really care how mad at me she'll end up." She didn't point out that it was pure luck that they weren't looking at Sam's body instead of this victim.

"What do we know about her?" Stella asked, gesturing to their vic and bringing the conversation back on topic.

"Her name is Amanda Parrish." Dawn checked the notes the responding officers had given her. "She works at the make-up counter at Bloomingdales and was discovered this morning by her roommate, who spent last night at her boyfriend's place. The roommate says that she didn't think Amanda had any plans, but she - the roommate - is also in a 'fairly new relationship' - her words - and has been spending more time with her new boyfriend than here lately."

"In other words, she probably hasn't seen Amanda since the last time she came home for a change of clothes," Maka said as she poked her head into the adjoining bathroom. There was a door on the opposite side leading to what she assumed was the roommate's bedroom. "The wastebasket liner is gone again, and the can is empty."

"Consistent with the previous scenes," Stella said as she joined Maka in the bathroom. She brought the bottle of luminol with her, lightly spraying down the side of the bathtub. "And we have traces of bleach as well. He cleaned up after himself again."

"We need to find out where he found her. If it wasn't at Remy's and we aren't following the right angle, we need to figure out what's really going on. And fast."

::

There had been something a little cathartic about pulling Sam out of bed hours before she usually rose. But Dawn's sister had, after being informed there was another victim who had likely been at one of the same bars Sam had been at, told them where she had gone. Despite still being angry Dawn's over having Moran hunt her down to check on her.

Royale was several blocks away from Remy's and The W, but right next door to the Sheraton, where some of the AAS meetings were taking place. It had taken a few phone calls, but a manager was supposed to meet them there.

"At least we're on the right track," Dawn said as she looked over at the Sheraton. "It's still likely connected to the conference. We're just back to 15,000 suspects instead of a couple thousand."

"Could be worse," Maka said lightly. "We could still be looking at the whole city."

Dawn snorted softly. That was something she kept trying to remind herself of, but it wasn't working as well as it had at first. "Tell me again when we find the guy."

The manager, who introduced himself as Lee, immediately recognized the picture of Amanda Parrish. "Left with a business guy--one at the conference next door." He grinned at their impressed looks. "He had one of the coupons we put in the stuff they hand out. Bring them in with the promise of a free drink, and they'll buy three more before the night is over. I don't know how they're doing any sort of business with the hangovers most of them have to be sporting."

"Did the business guy have a name?"

"Told her to call him 'Walt' - just a sec." He stepped over to the cash register. "I'm pretty sure he paid with a credit card. Here it is." He came back with a copy of a receipt. "Walter Key."

"And you're sure that he's staying next door?" Dawn asked, disbelief tingeing her voice. She knew they were waiting for him to make a mistake, but this was a pretty big mistake.

"Yeah, he was saying something about getting her a Midtown." He caught her confused look. "A Midtown Manhattan. It's the Russell's signature drink," he explained, referring to the Sheraton's hotel bar. "It sounded like he was suggesting a nightcap before they headed back to his room."

"His room? Not her place?"

"Nah, I didn't hear them say anything about going to her place. They may have kept to my area of the bar, so I heard more than I usually do, but I didn't get the chance to hear a lot. We were pretty busy last night. These conferences are good for business."

"Yeah, but they're bad for the women in the city," Maka muttered under her breath as they stepped back out onto the street.

"Shall we go talk to Mr. Key?" Dawn asked, looking down the street at the Sheraton again.

"I say we do."

Mr. Key certain wasn't expecting them, with a little assistance from management, to come bursting into his hotel room just before ten in the morning. His evening, and now morning, companion most certainly wasn't expecting it, either.

"The hell?" Dawn said as they stared at the man and woman in the bed. This wasn't what they'd been expecting.

"Just what is going on here?" The woman cried out, pulling the covers up over herself as the man next to her yelled at them.

"What is this about?"

"Amanda Parrish," Dawn replied as she motioned for them to get out of bed.

"Who?" Key asked, wrapping a sheet around himself as his companion did the same with the comforter.

"The woman you picked up at the Royale," Maka supplied. "The woman who was murdered last night."

"Wait? Her? Murdered?" He gaped at them, sheet nearly slipping from his grasp. "You don't think I had anything to do with that?"

"Why don't you go get dressed, and we can go back to the precinct and find out," Dawn suggested. "You, too," she said to the woman, "Ms--"

"Sweet. My name is Rita Sweet." She tugged the comforter around herself tightly. "And Walt has been with me all night."

"Of course, Ms. Sweet. But we still need to go downtown and have a talk."

::

Mac, still wearing his suit from court, joined Dawn in the interrogation room with Walt Key while Maka and Stella spoke with Ms. Sweet. Key fidgeted in his seat as they sat down opposite him, immediately starting to talk before Dawn had a chance to ask a question.

"I didn't do it. You've got to trust me on that."

"Mr. Key, we have a witness who saw you leave the Royale with Ms. Parrish."

"Yeah, but I was just taking her back to the hotel bar. I knew that Rita was going to be there, and I wanted to make her jealous."

"You took her back to the bar to make Ms. Sweet jealous."

"Exactly. She's my conference--we hook up at every AAS conference. But this year she was all over some yacht salesman from Miami. So I knew that she'd be in the bar with him, and I thought that if I brought a hot woman back with me, maybe she'd see what it felt like."

"She's your 'conference wife'?" Dawn asked. "Meaning that you gave Ms. Sweet reason to have motive to kill Ms. Parrish."

"No," he protested, shaking his head vigorously. "It wasn't anything like that. We went back to the hotel bar, had a drink, I, um, ran into Rita when I went up for refills, and we ended up going back up to my room, instead. We didn't leave after that--not until you got there."

"You abandoned your date at the hotel bar."

"I wouldn't call her a _date_, per se. Just someone I was having drinks with."

"Did she speak with anyone else at the Russell?"

"Not that I saw. The place was pretty full; a lot of people from the conference were there. She could have ended up anywhere, with anyone after I left."

Dawn pushed her hair back from her forehead, hoping her frustration wasn't written all over your face. "Thank you, Mr. Key," she said as she rose. "Of course, we're going to have to verify what you say-"

"But I can leave?"

"Actually, no, you can't. Not until we know you're telling the truth."

"But I have to get back to the conference-"

"You didn't seem too worried about sleeping through half of the morning's sessions when we got there this morning. I'm sure the conference can go on without you."

"But-"

"But nothing. You get to stay here until I say otherwise." Turning on her heel, she stormed out into the hallway.

Maka and Stella were waiting for them. "You've got as much as we did?"

"He picked her up to make his girlfriend jealous. He even admitted to being a total cad and abandoning her in the bar to go back to his room with Ms. Sweet."

"Total cad?" Stella asked, a small smile ghosting her lips.

"You have a better word for what he did?"

"He's an ass?" Maka offered bluntly.

Dawn chuckled. "Something like that, but we've got to go back to the hotel and see if there's anything to prove his claims."

"They have a good surveillance system," Stella offered. "If he used the elevator, they'll have surveillance footage for that. And they have cameras at all of their entrances, even the bar. We should be able to get her leaving to go home."

"And, if he wasn't avoiding the cameras, who she was leaving with."

"We'll put a rush on the tapes," Mac said. "I don't care what Chad is working on when they get in, they'll be the priority. Just get them here."

"Why don't I go with?" Stella suggested. "I can bring the tapes back to the lab while you two stay and talk to the hotel management."

"You're supposed to be going home to rest," Mac reminded her, "unless you've forgotten that your shift started last night."

"I'll drop them by the lab on my way home," she amended. "It'll be on the way, and it'll save the trip, and wasted time of going back and forth or waiting."

While Stella ferried the security tapes back to the lab, Dawn and Maka started with the bartender at the Russell. He nodded when he saw the picture of Amanda Parrish.

"Oh, yeah. I remember that dust-up. Poor girl got caught in the middle and had no clue what was going on."

"Dust-up?" Maka asked. "Mr. Key forgot to mention that part."

"She-" He pointed at the picture. "-showed up here with one of our conference guests. His girlfriend wasn't too keen on that. They argued, got over it, and went upstairs."

"And she?" Dawn asked, holding up the picture.

"I gave her a drink on the house." He wiped down the bar as he spoke, disgust over what had happened clear on his face. "She didn't deserve getting pulled into a shitty retaliation move like that. After that she hung around a while, spoke with a couple of the other guests."

"Did you see who she left with?"

"A suit, probably. Most likely another guest if she didn't leave alone--that's mostly who we had in here last night. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more. After I gave her the drink, I got pulled away to help further down; I didn't see her much after that."

"The guy she came here with, did he ever come back down?"

He shook his head. "Not that I ever saw. But we have two entrances into the hotel and one to the street. When we get packed, it's impossible to see who is coming and going."

"Then we better hope there's something on the tapes," Maka said as they returned to the hotel lobby.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's note:** Written for the Genderbender Big Bang Challenge, featuring girl!Flack instead of the usual Don Flack. Thanks to E for the beta job and comma wrangling. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing.

::

Mac frowned when Stella followed Maka and Dawn into his office. "I thought I told you to go home and rest."

"You did," she said brightly, looking pleased about something. "And I didn't."

"Stella-"

"Save it for when you're thanking me, Mac." She dropped into the seat next to Dawn. "I think I figured this guy out. Or part of this guy."

"What did you find?" Dawn asked, leaning towards her and trying to look into the file folder she opened.

"He's not using his own knives, but he's not using their knives. At least, not on them. Well, the first victim's murder weapon may have belonged to her. But the second victim's did, as well. He's taking a knife from the scene and using it on his next victim."

"That would explain the discrepancy with victim number three, how the knife didn't match her set," Mac said.

"She was the first to have a set predominantly displayed like that, so it was easier to catch, especially when her missing knife was found next to Amanda Parrish. So I went back and looked at the contents of the other victims' utensil drawers," Stella replied. "Marcie Erikson did have a set; it just didn't come with the fancy knife block, so you didn't realize it at first. But once you put all her pieces by the same company together, including the knife used to kill her, it matched one of their sets - minus the knife found at the second scene. And that knife is one that is only sold in sets. It was similar with Anne Hoffman: put her knives together and there was a match to a set that included the knife found by Kelli Rowe."

"And the knife found by Amanda Parrish belonged to Kelli Rowe's set," Maka repeated, frowning. "He's taking trophies. But he didn't start out as prepared as he was later on."

"Some serial killers do take trophies. It almost sounds like he's learning as he goes. What about Anne Hoffman's knives? Did she have any sets with a missing piece?" Dawn asked. "Because if we find that knife, we'll have what we need for a court order to get his DNA. We'll have evidence that he didn't just sleep with her before someone else killed her. We just have to find him, and the knife, first."

"Yes, one knife missing," Stella said, passing a picture of the missing knife around the office. "So we do have something else to look for." She turned back to Mac. "Was Chad able to get anything?"

"Our killer knew where the surveillance cameras were," Mac said. He opened the folder on his desk, handing copies of stills from the cameras to everyone. "We have Amanda Parrish leaving, but we don't have a good shot of her companion's face. But it does confirm Walter Key's alibi - the cameras show him and Ms. Sweet leaving the bar and going to his room; they don't leave after that."

"So we're back to square one," Dawn said with a sigh.

"Not entirely," Mac said. "Every entrance into the Russell had surveillance. Chad went through the footage and was able to get images of every man who entered the bar, starting an hour before Ms. Parrish arrived until she left. We have our killer's face, we just don't know which one he is."

"What about them leaving? Can we pick out men who didn't leave with the victim? And how about the footage from Temple? Is it as comprehensive as that from the Russell? Could he do something similar and compare the faces?" Maka asked.

"He's working on it now," Mac answered. "The footage from Temple is taking precedence, since the cameras showing people leaving the Russell didn't get images as good as those showing people entering. Last I checked, he had already found a couple of men who had been at both bars, so we are going to be able to narrow it down further. However, it wasn't as comprehensive; the back entrance didn't have a camera, and the club was a lot busier. We can verify that some menwere at were both, but we can't fully eliminate men who we only found at Russell."

"If he didn't use the back entrance to leave, he likely didn't use it to enter," Dawn said as she flipped through the pictures. "From eight million to fifteen thousand to thirty to possibly fewer. Now we just need names to go with them." She came across one familiar face, first wrinkling her nose, then remembering what Maka had said the night before. She _could_ too ask for help. "Gagnon was there last night, and his job means he works closely with a lot of the conference participants. I'll talk with him to see if he can identify any of them."

"Good idea," Maka said. "I'll go with you."

"I was hoping you would."

"And you," Mac said to Stella as the other two detectives left, "are going home to rest."

"I know. I know."

::

Gagnon seemed surprised to see someone else with her when she showed up for their meeting, but he quickly recovered as she introduced Maka as her partner. "It's very good to meet you, Detective Maka."

"And you, Mr. Gagnon. Dawn says you have been essential in assisting us."

Dawn barely prevented her eyebrows from reaching her hairline at that. She wouldn't have put it exactly that way. More like she'd filled Maka in on Gagnon and how his enthusiasm at helping with the case bugged her somehow, but Maka handled him like a pro, continuing to massage his ego as they walked to the conference room.

"I'm doing my best to help," he responded in a self-deprecating tone of voice.

"We wouldn't have gotten as far as we have without you. I hope you'll be able to help us some more, now."

"Gladly. What is it you need my assistance on?"

"We have some pictures from the Russell on the night that our latest victim died," Dawn said, stepping in. "We were hoping that you could help us identify some of the people in them. You work with and have met so many members of the conference due to your job, and since it was mostly conference members in the bar that night, hopefully you'll know a few of them."

"You really think I can help with that?" he asked, in a not entirely convincing uncertain voice. Dawn wondered if he was really asking not because he wasn't certain or if he thought that's what they were expecting him to do.

"We have other ways to try to identify them as well," Maka said, "but they will take longer. Anyone you can put a name to is one less we'll have to wait on getting."

"I'll see what I can do." He took the folder quickly, though, flipping it open and looking through the stills. "Oh, yes, I do know some of the men in here. This one here-" He passed one of the pictures, marked as #4, to Dawn. "-that's Jeremy Franke. He's the Parliamentarian with the Governance committee."

"Jeremy Franke, see you're already helping us," Maka said, writing everything down.

"Is there anyone else?" Dawn asked, trying to hide her impatience.

"Isaiah Feld." Gagnon passed them another photo, this time #7. "But I'm certain it wasn't him. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met. He's the membership coordinator for the Home Furnishings Round Table."

"We'll still need to talk with him," Dawn said.

"You know," Gagnon said, looking up from the stack, "I could help with that. Considering what I know of these men, their areas of interest and what groups they're members of, I could probably figure out what their schedules will be."

"Or we could just call them," Dawn suggested as she pulled a copy of the membership rolls he'd given to her from one of her files. "If I remember correctly, many of the members listed cell phone numbers on their registration in case they needed to be contacted in an emergency."

"Of course; that, too."

"But if they didn't," Maka said, "we'd be glad for your assistance."

He grinned at them, very pleased with that, before turning back to the pictures. By the time he had finished sorting through the stack, he'd given them names for fourteen of the men, and Dawn had found the contact information for ten of those in the records.

"We can start with these," Dawn suggested, "since we know how to reach them. Since you offered to help find the others-"

"It might be easier to start with them," he said, interrupting her in a rush. "The ones you can call, well you can call them anytime, right? But these, since we can't call them, it might make most sense to search them out first. Weston Haber, for example, is a speaker at the Online Marketing panel that is-" He checked his watch. "-going on right now, actually. If we leave now for the hotel, we can catch him as it finishes. Pat Victor is one of the coordinators for the Automotive Sales Round Table poster session this afternoon; we'll be able to find him there then."

"And we can call and track down the others between those sessions," Dawn said, understanding.

Next to her, Maka nodded. "You can put together a list of where these four will be for us to take?"

"It might be easier if I go with you. I can help you get into the sessions and to talk with everyone."

Dawn bit the inside of her mouth, trying to avoid making a snarky comment. Of course he wanted to tag along.

"That's a great idea," Maka said with a smile, though Dawn recognized her tone of voice. She was just as thrilled by that prospect as Dawn was.

"You don't mind if I, uh, ride with you, do you? It'd be easier than me trying to take the train-"

"It's fine," Dawn said. "Why don't we start with the panel? It's going on where?"

"The Millennium," he said after checking the schedule.

They had to wait for Weston Haber's panel to finish, buying coffees at the hotel restaurant and going over the case while they waited. Dawn stood from their table as people started filtering out of the room, Maka and Gagnon not far behind her as she approached Haber. "Mr. Haber?" she asked, holding her badge for him to see. "Detective Flack with the NYPD. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind."

He glanced to Gagnon for help, suddenly making Dawn very glad they'd agreed to let the man come with as he nodded reassuringly. "Of course."

Fifteen minutes later, they had learned that he'd been at the Russell that night, was staying at the Sheraton during the conference, and had met with some colleagues there. He was happy to provide them with a list of said colleagues whom he had left with. He thought he'd seen the victim there, but he couldn't be certain, and he didn't know whom she had come or left with. In all, Dawn though to herself, he had a pretty good alibi and was a name to cross off the list. It was more than they had before, but not nearly enough.

"Shall we try Pat Victor next?" Gagnon suggested, nearly hitting a passerby as he waved his hand and coffee cup. "The poster session I mentioned is starting in fifteen minutes. It should take us about that long to get to the Marriott."

Any reply they may have had was interrupted by a tall brunette who hurried up to Gagnon. "Charlie, just the person I've been looking for. About the panel this afternoon, they won't let me into the room-"

"That's because it is going to be in use prior to your panel, Ms. May."

"But I need to set up-"

"The hotel staff will take care of that for you," he said reassuringly. "Why don't you go and sit in on the Foreign Sales panel discussion in the Wilmont Room? I understand that it is right up your alley; certainly you'd enjoy it."

"Well, I suppose." She glanced at Maka and Dawn, her blue eyes studying them over her glasses before she turned to go. "You're certain about the room?"

"Positive. It'll be ready when you need it," he said, smiling at her retreating figure before turning back to them and massaging his temples. "My apologies. Ms. May is, well, a bit of a perfectionist and a worrier, but we should still have time to get to the Marriott."

"What about the other two? Have you had a chance to figure out what sessions they might be at today?" Maka asked, drinking the last of her coffee before throwing the cup away.

"Um..."

"Why don't you work on that in the car?" Dawn suggested, glancing at Maka. Gagnon nodded, taking another drink of his coffee as he followed them back to the car. They spent the rest of the day, and well into the evening, first tracking down the members they didn't have cell phone numbers for, then making arrangements and meeting with as many of them as possible. Finally, Dawn called it a day, just after getting a phone call from Gerrard's secretary that he wanted to speak with them. They hadn't reached everyone yet, but they'd made a decent dent in the list of identified men.

"Well?" Dawn asked Maka after they pulled away from the Greenwich building where they dropped off Gagnon. "What did you think?"

"I see what you mean. He's a little... off."

"Too interested in the investigation, you know? And far more excited about this than he should have been."

"That, too," Maka shrugged. "At least he was able to help us with part of the list, and he seemed willing to help further tomorrow."

"I'm not certain how we'll be able to get much more," Dawn said, her frustration evident in her voice. "He's already identified those he recognized."

"But we weren't able to speak with all of them, so we can use him to help us get to those others tomorrow. And he said he had some colleagues who might be able to identify those we haven't yet."

"Yeah." Dawn sighed, pulling into the precinct parking lot. "I guess you're right. I just-" She shook her head. "-I don't know."

"I understand," Maka said. "Something about him bugs you, and you can't put your finger on it. We'll figure it out. Now let's go update Gerrard and get out of here. If he keeps to his schedule, tomorrow's our last day to find him before he kills again, and we need to be ready."


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's note:** Written for the Genderbender Big Bang Challenge, featuring girl!Flack instead of the usual Don Flack. Thanks to E for the beta job and comma wrangling.

::

Dawn was almost to the precinct when she spotted the coffee cup on the floor of the car and groaned. She'd meant to take that up with her and throw it away last night; it had just slipped her mind when she'd gotten home. Mentally reminding herself to throw it away when she got to the precinct, she paused.

He'd left it in _her_ car, so there shouldn't be any chain of custody questions, and he had been at both bars. Maka may have had a point about her having a hard time asking for help, but she didn't think that was entirely the reason Gagnon gave her the creeps. There was just something _off_ about him. It was probably nothing, but it wouldn't hurt to at least check it out.

Decision made, she turned her car toward the lab.

Dr. Jane Parsons was just getting in for the day when she got to the DNA lab. "Hello, Detective Flack."

"Hi, Dr. Parsons. I-" She stopped, closing and opening her mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with a way to put this. "I need a favor."

"Is this for the quadruple murder case you're working?" Jane asked.

"It's probably nothing; it's probably just because the guy is a former used car salesman or something like that. But if nothing else, we can eliminate him as a suspect, right?"

"I think you need to back up a bit."

She held out the coffee cup she carried, the little bit of liquid at the bottom sloshing a bit. "Can you run this for DNA?"

"It's from a suspect?" Jane took the cup as she asked.

Dawn threw up her hands in frustration. "At this point, I don't really know. It's from the conference organizer who's been helping us; he left it in my car yesterday. He--something about him bugs me. It could be nothing. It probably _is_ nothing. But he was at two of the bars on nights when our victims were murdered, which I guess does make him a potential suspect. One of around thirty."

"But if it is nothing, like you said we could eliminate him if we compare his DNA to our sample from Ms. Rowe."

"Right. And I'm getting tired of second-guessing myself on him, you know? I just want to know what's up."

"I'll start on it now. The process normally takes quite a while." Jane hesitated when Dawn frowned. "But there's a way that I can speed it up. While usually just as accurate, it isn't an accepted standard, so it may not hold up in court. We'd have to rerun it later according to the FBI standards."

"Do it. I need to be able to give something to the brass, even if it is just that we've eliminated people as suspects. That shows some progress."

"It'll be about three hours. Do you want me to call you, or do you want to stick around and wait?"

Dawn looked at her, slightly stunned. "Someone actually waits? Just call me; I'm going to be out tracking down more of our nameless men."

"Mac does on occasion." Jane grinned. "I think he's just too impatient for me to call. He wants the results immediately."

"I have too many other leads to follow right now," Dawn said. "Thanks, Dr. Parsons. I'll be waiting for your call."

::

Thanks to her side trip to the lab, Dawn got to the precinct a bit later than she'd planned, but she hadn't counted on Maka not being there yet, instead expecting her partner to be waiting and wondering where she was.

"Hey, Flack," Marks called her over to the front desk. "Maka wanted me to let you know that she got called out."

"The Hubert case?" Dawn asked with a frown.

"The Hubert case," he nodded. "There was a hit to CODIS last night, just added from another case in Philly. She ended up driving down to talk with the detectives on that one to see if together they had enough to narrow in on a suspect."

"It's good she's got the case moving again," Dawn said, brushing her hair behind her ear.

It would have been helpful to have Maka around, but at the same time, it was going to be more of the same from yesterday. She glanced at her watch; they were supposed to meet up again with Gagnon to work on further identifying their mystery men. The lab was also running the pictures through facial recognition software, trying to identify them through driver's license and state ID photos. But since they had to compare to more than just the New York State database, it was taking far longer than they wanted. The more they identified this way, the fewer they had to run against the databases.

Still, she wasn't supposed to meet Gagnon for another hour. She could stay here and do paperwork, or go and wear a hole in the tile outside Dr. Parson's office waiting for the results. Or, she quickly realized, she could go and talk with someone else she knew had seen their murderer. "I'm going to be out the rest of the day, trying to track down the identities of our potential suspects. If she gets back, let her know where I am. And have her call me so we can meet up and go over things."

Dawn had gotten Nicole Webb's number and address when they first met at Porter's, ostensibly in case she needed to get any more information later. (She hadn't really planned to use it for anything else, even though a certain offer was still fresh in her mind.) She called on her way back to the car, making arrangements to meet for coffee just down the street from where Nicole lived.

"Hi, Detective," Nicole said, giving her a shy smile as she sat down. "You wanted me to look at something?"

"We have some photos that may include the man you saw leaving with Kelli Rowe. Do you mind taking a look at them?"

"I can try. I'm not certain how good of a look I got at him."

"Trying is good."

Though hopefully she'd get more here. Maxine Rowe had already looked at the photos the day before and hadn't been able to pick out any one definitively. She had apologized profusely, trying her hardest not to cry as she admitted she had been too drunk to be able to recognize her sister's killer. Nicole hadn't been drunk, however, and might be able to give them a better idea of who their killer was. And if he was one of the men they'd already managed to identify, even better.

Nicole nodded, opening the folder to look through the pictures. "Here, this is him," she said, finding one that looked right. She was about to hand it to Dawn when she saw the picture behind it. "Wait, maybe this is. Oh..." She ran her hand down the back of her head. "This is going to be harder than I thought."

As Dawn waited, she looked closely at every single picture in the folder, pulling photos out every now and then to add to a small, but growing, pile by her coffee cup. Finally, she handed the folder back to Dawn, looking through the stack one last time before giving it over as well.

"He's one of those. I can't be certain - we were pretty busy - but I do at least know the men in that pile were in the bar that night. I think he's one of the top three in that stack, but I'm not positive on which one."

"This is great, thanks," Dawn said as she took the stack and started to look through it.

The picture on top was someone they hadn't identified yet, but the second was familiar enough that she was unexpectedly pleased she made that unplanned stop this morning. Of the other four, two others had already been identified - and questioned, with their alibis seeming fairly good - and the other two hadn't. She wrote down which Nicole had singled out, before moving the unidentified three from her stack to the top. Those were the ones she wanted to start with.

She continued as she stood to leave, "You've given us more than we had before I got here."

"I'm glad I could help," Nicole said, looking a little relieved. "Oh, and detective?" Her cheeks grew pink when Dawn turned back to her. "Um, that offer from earlier still stands."

This time Dawn blushed, ducking her head. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

She meant it, too. She had spent most of the past week telling herself she needed to get out more with people who weren't from work. And if Nicole seemed to be interested in something more than just hanging out, that would be a nice bonus.

First, however, she had a killer to catch and a case with a deadline. After Monday, if they didn't have him, their case was probably going to end up cold. He'd be in another city, probably in another state. It was more likely that the rest of her weekend was going to be spent working to try to bring him in than out club hopping.

That didn't mean it wouldn't be nice to have something to look forward to, she thought to herself as she walked back to her car. Yeah, getting this guy behind bars would be its own reward, but a treat would be fun as well.

Monday. If she found him by Monday, she'd take Nicole up on the offer. Or at least plan a night out. Do something other than staying home over the weekend with casefiles. She'd had enough of that for a while.

::

Thanks to the extra stop, Dawn was a few minutes late getting to the Greenwich Building. It was worth it in her opinion, having called back to the lab to ask them to concentrate on identifying the three men that Nicole had picked out. She'd ask Gagnon, too, to see if he had any ideas how to find them. But the two identified men Nicole had picked out were men they hadn't spoken with yet, which put them at the top of her list for the morning.

Gagnon was waiting in the lobby, looking a bit worried, when the elevator opened. He frowned at her. "No Detective Maka today?"

"She was called out on another case," Dawn explained, trying to study him closely without him noticing as they walked back to the conference room. He seemed rather agitated, which was fairly normal for him - or so she thought. Now she wasn't quite so certain.

"That's unfortunate. It was a pleasure to meet her yesterday." He paused, as if trying to decide whether or not to continue. "Oh, and I wanted to apologize."

"For what?" Dawn said, frowning at him. "You haven't done anything wrong, have you?"

"I left my trash in your vehicle last night," he said, flushing in embarrassment. "I really should have known better."

"Don't worry about it. I took care of it." Dawn pulled the images out again as she sat down, flipping through them before pulling out the two she wanted to start with. Gagnon leaned over to watch as she did so.

"You rearranged them," he noticed as she flipped past the still that was taken of him.

"Hm? Oh, yes. I spoke with one of the bartenders about who they remembered being at the bar." She deliberately kept her response vague.

He nodded, pushing the briefcase he'd set on the table aside. "That makes perfect sense. Of course, I was at the Russell to meet with the presenters to go over our preparations for the next day."

"Of course." She smiled at him. "You explained that yesterday. Now, this one-" She picked up the picture of one of the identified men. "-he wasn't answering his phone yesterday, but you said he'll likely be at a particular session this afternoon. Correct?"

"Yes; I can make arrangements for us to meet him there."

"Thank you."

::

"Mac!" Jane called out as she hurried down the lab's hallway, waving him and Stella over.

She still couldn't quite believe it, had even already set it up to run again to double check her results. But if it was right, then the fact that Dawn wasn't answering her phone wasn't something she could ignore.

"Jane," he said when they reached her. "Is something wrong?"

"She figured it out," Jane said, pausing to catch her breath. "Detective Flack figured out who your murderer is. Only she doesn't know and I can't reach her and I think that she might be with him right now."

"With him?" Mac asked, reaching for the cell phone on his belt. He dialed Dawn's number, concern growing as it rang through to voicemail.

"The man from the conference who is helping with the case--he left his coffee cup in her car, and she asked me to run it. I don't think she expected anything to come of it, just wanted to be able to exclude him from the investigation if nothing else."

"She's mentioned that there was something about him that seemed off," Stella said. "We discounted it because he's one of the conference organizers and had an alibi. Well, more like a reason to be at the places where the women were taken from. And he's been so cooperative with the investigation."

"Serial killers like to insert themselves in investigations," Mac reminded them both as he dialed another number. "They want to know how much we have and try to influence the outcome. We should have realized that."

"And she's alone. Maka went to Philadelphia on the Hubert case."

"I know," Mac said, putting his hand up to cut off anything else she was about to say as there was an answer on the phone. "Officer Marks, did Flack say where she was going to be today?"

"Back working the conference angle again with your suspect list," Marks said over the phone.

"She's not answering her phone. If she calls, in tell her to contact either myself or Detective Bonasera immediately." Mac hung up before Marks could ask anything else, turning back to Jane. "Thank you for finding us."

"You know where to find her?"

"I think so, but I'd like for you to keep trying to get through to her. She's working with the conference again, so she may have turned her phone down to avoid interrupting a session. She may answer it or call back when she gets out."

"Meaning she's with him." Stella pursed her lips. "Mac, that's in Midtown, near that cell phone dead zone around the Empire State Building. And she fits-"

"I know, Stella. We just have to trust that she'll be okay until we get there," he said as they both hurried to the elevator. "She's a good detective, and if this man was bugging her enough to ask Jane to run his DNA, then she's considering him a suspect."

"Still, I'll feel better when we get there."


	17. Chapter 17

**Note:** This was written for the Genderbend Big Bang on LiveJournal. Thanks to Elenna for betaing. Thank you for reading and reviewing!  
**  
**

::

"Thank you, Mr. Fairchild," Dawn said to one of Gagnon's colleagues. He had called the other man in to help identify some of the pictures. He hadn't been nearly as much help as Gagnon has suggested he might, but somehow Dawn wasn't surprised. She stayed at the table as Gagnon escorted him to the door, looking over her notes again. There was something missing.

Actually, she thought to herself with a frown as she flipped through the pages and photos, there really was something missing. She bit her lip as Gagnon turned back to her.

"I'm so sorry. I thought he'd know one of them."

"Hmm," she nodded, looking through the stack of notes again.

"Is something wrong?"

"Some of the photos are missing. And a few pages of my notes."

His eyes grew wide--too wide, too astonished. "Do you think that maybe one of them took it?" he asked, gesturing to the door. There had been a number of people in and out trying to help with the pictures. "Maybe it got mixed up in their things by accident?"

"It's a possibility. Unless-" She glanced at his briefcase, stepping over to open it. "Maybe it got mixed in with your papers-"

"No! Don't!" He held his hands up as she snapped open the locks. "I'm sorry, Detective, but I can't let you look in there."

"You can't?"

"It's- It's because of my job, you see. Some of the information that I work with includes personal information, and we really can't let just anyone look at it."

Dawn tipped her head, studying him closely. "I didn't realize I was just anyone." He paled, swallowing hard. And then looked profoundly relieved when she stepped away. "You don't mind looking for me, do you?"

"No, no. Of course not." A line of sweat had broken out across his forehead. He wiped it away, joking about it "getting hot in here" as he stepped around her to his briefcase. "Um," he stalled, "I'm going to have to ask you to step away for a moment."

"Of course," she said pleasantly, though she kept her eyes on him as she moved. She had no doubt that while what he had in there was something he didn't want her to see, it wasn't anything to actually do with his job.

He opened the case, carefully rifled through it, and shook his head as he began to shut it. "No, no. No notes of yours in here."

"How about Amanda Parrish's knife?" she asked quietly.

He froze, then turned to her, the briefcase flipping back open since it wasn't latched. "Pardon?" he asked, attempting to give her an innocent, confused look.

She's seen that look on her sister's face enough to know better. "Amanda Parrish's knife. The one you're planning to use to kill your next victim."

Now it was Gagnon's turn to study her, watching her closely before reaching into the case. "Are you volunteering, detective? I've rather liked you. You're nothing like _her_."

"You actually want to try to kill me here? In the middle of your offices?"

"I don't think I have much of a choice, do I?" he pointed out, pulling the knife out of the briefcase and stepping forward. "Don't worry. No one would expect it of me. I could just walk right out of here, and no one would think anything of it. Not until they found your body."

Gagnon stepped forward again, and now Dawn really began to wish that Maka hadn't been called away. And realize that maybe this hadn't been her smartest move. She should have waited for the results from Jane instead of just confronting him with a theory. Plus, he was standing between her and the door. Obviously, this wasn't her day.

"Perhaps," she said, trying to talk him down as she maneuvered into a better position, "but everyone knows that you're in here working with me. So even if you do walk out that door, a manhunt would be on. A manhunt for a cop killer."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll think of something." He tipped his head to the side, watching her. "You know, I'd be tempted to ask you to sit still. None of the others were moving. But I do think it's going to be more interesting this way."

"And I've never been one to be known to be cooperative," Dawn replied, moving away from him again. She wasn't going to glance at the door; she knew better than to take her eyes off of him, but she wasn't certain how far away she was. She needed to know.

Just as she turned her head--just the slightest bit to look--he attacked. Knife in hand, raised above his head, Gagnon raced towards her. Dawn let years of boxing training from her dad and all of the Academy's self-defense training take over, dodged and grabbing at him as he passed, used his momentum to hurtle him away from her. He made a rather resounding - and pleasing - thunking sound as he hit the wall next to the window, the knife skittering away from him. She was about to reach for her sidearm, something she'd been hoping to avoid, wanting to try to talk him down, when he charged again - this time catching her off guard. Dawn was barely able to keep her balance when he crashed into her, painfully knocking against the table and a chair as she twisted away, but she was ready for him after that.

He was between her and the door again, but she was between him and the knife. Gagnon didn't even glance back at his way out, instead charging again, but she had her fists up, falling back into a semi-crouch stance, and hit him with an uppercut that knocked him back on his heels when he approached. He didn't react quickly enough, and she punched again, harder, this time connecting and knocking him completely off balance so he fell backwards. When he didn't move after hitting the ground, she did pull out her sidearm, cautiously approaching his still form.

Leaning over, she was just about to cuff him when Dawn heard the conference room doors open. She immediately stood, her gun at the ready, only to relax when she saw it was Stella and Mac.

"'Bout time you guys got here."

She was pretty sure she looked a sight. Her lip was stinging, probably swelling, and she could feel blood on the side of her face. Her clothes were rumpled, like, well, like she'd been rolling around on the floor - which she nearly had been. But she had come out on top.

"We thought maybe you could use a hand," Stella said with a worried grin. She pulled a tissue out of a pocket to hand to Dawn as Mac finished cuffing Gagnon. "Jane found us with the results when she couldn't reach you. Gagnon's our murderer."

"I just-" She shook her head, still not certain how to explain it. "I had a feeling about him. He wasn't right."

"It's called intuition, kiddo. And you need to learn to follow it more." Stella's voice took on a lecturing tone.

"And be better about asking for help. And a whole lot of other things. But at least we got him."

"No, at least _you_ got him."

::

The lab was quiet when she reached it, stepped off the elevators to find it nearly empty. Surprised, she walked down the empty hall in the direction of Mac's office, stopping when she saw him meeting with someone inside. So she turned, finding her way to Stella's instead.

The other detective looked up when she knocked, grinning when she saw who it was. "Flack! How was court?"

"Pretty good. In a surprising move, Gagnon decided to plead guilty. It was all over pretty quickly."

"And your first solo case is closed."

"Not completely solo, though Kaile refuses to take any credit." _Except for talking some sense into me_, Dawn thought to herself. She shrugged nonchalantly. "Slow day here?"

"Luckily," Stella said, glancing towards Mac's office. "We have a new transfer starting today. Last time we had a new transfer, we also ended up having a small crime wave. I was worried he'd burn out before the end of the week."

"The guy in Mac's office?"

"Yeah, his name is Messer, transferring in from Narcotics."

"Messer, as in-?" Dawn's eyes grew wide as she made the connection. She knew the name. Oh, she definitely knew the name. Her father'd have a fit if he knew about this. It probably was a good thing they were barely on speaking terms right now.

"Yeah, his son joined the force," Stella said with a nod. "Mac had to pull some strings to get him transferred, but he's supposed to be good. Mac thinks he's worth it."

"Hmm..." Dawn shook her head. She had a feeling that Sinclair was going to make their lives difficult over this. "Hopefully the next few days will stay quiet while you show him the ropes."

"Not too quiet; hard to justify the promotion and transfer if we're all sitting here twiddling our thumbs. Unless someone forgot her case is the reason Mac was finally able to convince Sinclair we needed to add another detective to the lab," Stella said. "Speaking of the case, we owe you dinner. When do you want to go? And where?"

Dawn blushed, having forgotten that promise from when they were standing in Marcie Erikson's blood-soaked bedroom. "I'll have to get back to you on that."

"And on when we're getting together to cook. I still owe you a moussaka recipe."

"Now you're just trying to get my mom's corned beef recipe," Dawn laughed, leaning back in her chair. "Remind me again later; I'm on this weekend, and that kind of cooking is going to be a Saturday project."

"But the dinner doesn't have to be. How about tonight?" Mac asked from the doorway, the new detective just behind him. "For the dinner?"

"I may have plans," Dawn said as she shook her head. "Next week?"

Mac nodded, then gestured to the detective with him. "Danny, I want you to meet Detective Dawn Flack. Flack, this is Detective Danny Messer. He's just transferred in."

"Nice to meet you," she said as she shook his hand.

"Flack, huh?" Messer asked. She just raised an eyebrow in response, waiting to see how he continued. "You brought in that serial killer, didn't you? I heard about the case; it was pretty impressive." He didn't mention anything else, so neither did she.

"Thanks. Congratulations on the transfer. They've got a good team here."

"Thank you. I'm looking forward to working with them." He grinned at her. "And you."

She nearly rolled her eyes. He wasn't exactly flirting, but it was close enough for her to be less than impressed by him. "I'll see you Stell, Mac. I've got to get back to the precinct. Thanks for your help with the case."

Mac nodded, ushering Messer down the hallway to the next office. Dawn waved to Stella and headed out to the elevator. She almost didn't want to see the pile of paperwork waiting for her. She had a feeling it was going to be huge.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's note:** Written for the Genderbender Big Bang Challenge, featuring girl!Flack instead of the usual Don Flack. Thanks to E for the beta job and comma wrangling, and to the Post on Thursday ladies for the cheerleading and handholding as I wrote this. A huge thanks to everyone who has stuck through this and left wonderful feedback.

::

With each closed case came a veritable mountain of paperwork, one that seemed even larger when you didn't have someone else to help with it. Granted, Kaile did have her own set of forms to fill out, but a majority of them ended up on Dawn's desk, the ever-growing stack taunting her even more than the plastic knives the squad kept leaving on her desk.

When she could finally see the wood grain of the top of her desk, far past the end of her shift, Dawn decided to call it a night. The worst of the paperwork was finished, the late shift had come in, and her stomach was protesting the idea of that candy bar she had inhaled two hours ago being all she had for dinner.

She tossed the last few files in a drawer where they'd keep until morning and stood, muscles protesting after a day of inactivity. She pulled her jacket from the back of her chair after stretching, twisting her head this way and that to relieve tight muscles in her neck. It had been a quiet day, just like Stella had said that morning in the lab, with no new calls coming in for the homicide crew. It was a good day for paperwork.

And tonight was a good night to celebrate. She knew that if she called the lab, Stella and Mac would be up for dinner, but sitting with colleagues and rehashing the case over steaks wasn't really what she was in the mood for tonight. She briefly - for about ten seconds - considered her sister's admonition to call the next time she was going out. Dawn quickly set that aside - for all she knew, Sam was still mad about Moran. Plus, considering what she'd learned today, there was the potential for a storm brewing on the horizon. Most of the time, Sam had an even more contentious relationship with their father than she did, but occasionally they surprised her. She didn't need to bring up Messer's arrival in the lab to her sister only to find out she and Dad were talking again. Heads would roll, including her own. He may be retired, but Don Flack still held a lot of weight with the NYPD.

She'd learned that the hard way, when Dad had tried to keep her off the force. They didn't speak for almost a year after that one.

"Headin' out, Flack?"

Looking up, Dawn changed direction to stop by the front desk to chat with Marks. "Yeah. Trying to decide what to get for dinner, sushi or Italian?"

"You and your fancy foods. A nice steak, cooked medium rare with a big baked potato, now that's a good meal. No need for any raw fish there."

Dawn couldn't help but grin. The closest Marks ever came to "fancy food" was when it was his wife's turn to pick the TV and she made him watch episodes of _The Iron Chef_. His love of "plain, ordinary food" - steaks, sandwiches, fries - was about as well known as her appreciation of food in general. "See, that sounds good, too,m but not what I'm in the mood for tonight."

"Yeah, yeah." He waved his hand at her, rolling his eyes. "Just get on out of here before the boss sees you. He's liable to try to parade you in front of TV cameras again for the evening news."

"Heaven help us all," Dawn muttered. She couldn't help but glance over her shoulder just to make sure Gerrard wasn't back there. But Marks was right; the only reason she hadn't ended up the center of a press conference that morning was because the DA's office had called with some questions about a previous case. It wasn't every day that she considered having to review old case notes a blessing in disguise, but today she did. "Okay, I'm outta here. See you in the morning."

In the end, it was actually Indian that won out: her favorite takeout place was closer to her apartment and listed first in her cell phone's contacts list. A quick call ahead meant that her usual was waiting when she got there. She chatted quietly with Radha while waiting for her card to run, ducking out with a wave when she was handed her receipt.

It didn't take long to change once she got home, grabbing bites of her dinner from the top of the dresser as she pulled clothes from her closet. While being tall made it hell to find pants that fit, it also meant she had legs that, according to one former lover, went on forever. She thought they were rather nice, herself, and she had a couple of skirts that she could proudly show them off with - skirts that would never see the light of day at the precinct, but she wasn't going to work right now, was she? Pulling out a pair of heels that had been collecting dust at the back of her closet and a slinky top, she was set.

Porter's wasn't the type of place she usually went; most of the times she was going out, it was for drinks after work, not dancing. Dawn was reminded of this as she pushed her way inside, looking across the bar for a familiar head. The place was packed, and she had nearly talked herself out of staying when one of the bartenders turned her direction.

"Hey," she said quietly, a little uncertain. True, Nicole had invited her twice and actually seemed interested, but considering her track record, she _was_ pretty horrible at these things.

"Hey." Nicole grinned at her, squelching the worst of the butterflies. "I saw the news this morning - you got him."

"Yeah." She grinned back, leaning up against the bar. "We did. Thanks for the help."

"Anytime."

"I- um-" Dawn could feel her face flaming. "Well, you said-"

"What'll you have? Drinks are on me tonight."

Dawn relaxed a bit more, though in a way this was even more of a test. Her sister bartended and had often explained that what a person drank said a lot about them. "Do you have a lager on tap?" she asked, then continued after Nicole nodded, "I'll have that."

"Great," Nicole said, handing her a glass. "Um, listen, I'm not certain how long you were planning to stay-" This time, she was blushing, and suddenly Dawn didn't feel quite so awkward. "-but I'm off at 11:00. There's a great coffee shop down the block. I mean, if you're interested--"

"Yeah," Dawn said, grinning at the other woman. "I am."


End file.
